Category: 3advent

Clash of the Titans

JMJ
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The Readings for the 3rd Wednesday of Advent (A1)
Memorial of St John of the Cross, Priest & Doctor of the Church

Heavens above, rain down justice; let the clouds pour it down. Let the earth open, so that salvation springs up, and justice sprouts with it. I, Adonai, have created it.

Isaiah 45:8 (CJB)

READING this verse (or, as is common at this time of year, hearing it sung) always makes me think of a Greek Myth wherein Zeus appears as a rain of golden fire to Danaë, which is how she conceived Perseus. It is one of the more poetic of lines from Isaiah, addressed to Cyrus, the King of Persia, whom Isaiah calls “messiah” in 45:1. It is the liberation of the Jews from Babylon that is happening here, by the anointed hands of Cyrus.

God is using human politics to bring about divine ends. Cyrus did things for his own reasons (and for his own god, Marduk) yet the one, Almighty God appointed him to be the liberator of the Jews from their Captivity into which he – God – had sent them for their sins. This is Almighty God acting in history through the free will and agency of a human actor. This is how God has chosen to act in almost all of human history. He has condescended to enter into relationship with us wearing the face of our neighbor, meeting us where we are, and conveying to us his grace in the hands of those around us.

What about those who are not “one of us”?

Well, as with Cyrus, even praying to Marduk, God can cause divine grace to pour through his actions, through his politics. And in those places where God was not sending the Hebrew Prophets to prepare his way he was still preparing his way. The Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus, certainly, but actually, the whole world is such. How can it not be? All truth leads to the Truth. All light is but a reflection of the Light. All true life is but an echo of the Light. There is only one story, one way.

Or, you can walk off the screen. Your choices is valued and real. You can decide to reject the grace literally pouring in from everywhere.

Then it will be fire (for it always has been).

Time flies…

JMJ
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LEARNING, TONIGHT, OF TWO different readings of this passage. One will be familiar to my Christian readers, the other to my Jewish ones. There may be some overlap, but they seem to be mutually exclusive. There may be a way to pull in the both-and option, but we’ll see.

The Torah Portion that was read last Shabbat Morning was וַיִּשְׁלַח Vayishlach which means “and he sent”‎. The important passage, for me, is the wrestling with the angel. I have that as the header image on literally every page and post on this blog. (By way of stealing a bit of the sky from the Doré illustration.) But I do not read it the way the Jewish Tradition does.

“A man wrestled with him: our sages explained that this was the ministering angel of Esau.” A commonplace of Talmudic and midrashic literature is that every nation has its own angelic “minister” who represents its interests before G-d. It is Esau’s angel, then, who attempts to frustrate Jacob’s mission.

Source which cites the Talmud and other texts in support

Every Christian commentary I’ve heard on this passage indicates that Jacob is wrestling with God, himself, with even most of the liberal scholarship falling on the side of this being a mythological telling of Jacob wrestling with God. Israel is taken as a literal description of what has just happened (Jacob has wrestled with God) and a prophecy that he has nothing to fear from his brother, Esau, with whom he has also striven. The same commentaries say Jacob is sending his own angels ahead of him (Messangers = Angels, I get it).

Then Jacob and Esau meat and are reconciled. This reunion gets spun into some very interesting symbolism.

Jacob left home to try and control his own destiny but he knew he had to come back – God wanted him in Eretz Israel for his own salvation as well as the blessing he would be to the whole world. To come back into the Land, though, he would need to reconcile with his family – including the ones he had tricked. God needs to make evident that Jacob intends to be here – evident not to God, but to Jacob. So it is fitting that there are trials for Jacob to overcome on his way home. God wants Jacob to see that he – Jacob – wants to be here.

Sometimes, when things are too easy, we are willing to drop them just because they were too easy. When we have to work for them… suddenly I will not let you go until you bless me. This journey home was Jacob’s purgatory. He has more to come, actually. But he’s home for now.

Part of our own journey home is realizing where home really is.

This Sunday was Advent 3, Gaudete Sunday. “Rejoice”, from the Introit Verse in Philippians 4:4, Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Amen, rejoice.

From my first visit to St Dominic’s in 2016

Six years ago on 3 Dec 2016 I walked into St Dominic’s Church for the first time. It was Saturday before the 2nd Sunday of Advent that year. Three days later, as my friend Tim says, I moved in. I was thinking about it this weekend. Six years later and some things have happened. I feel like I’ve been here at least 10 years. One lifelong parishioner assumed I was also a lifer. Look upon this vine you have planted….

Making, with my Sister Anne, Life Profession as Dominican Tertiaries.

In the midst of all life’s changes and passions, I wanted to promise God I would not run away. That if he let me come back to SF from my exile in Alabama, I would stay put. I would root this time. Nothing would be an optional item. Nothing would be expendable. God would be in charge of staying or going. I’m not leaving minus clear indications otherwise.

Six years after walking in the front door, I work for the parish and I’m involved as a Dominican tertiary and also in the formation program for the diaconate. It’s not been easy – there have been many surprising bumps and som very hard knocks. Purgatory is not supposed to be easy. But the end is the reunification of God and Man. The Catholic Answer to Gnosticism is not “God can use matter” or “matter is neutral” or even “don’t worry about matter”. To make a direct pun, matter matters. There is literally nothing in life that is not intended as an action of God’s grace. Your friends, family, even your enemies are there to pour God’s grace into your life for your salvation. This is why icons are bathed in light: all of the universe, all physical matter, is mdiating God’s grace to you if you can but see it. Icons are windows to heaven and heaven is happening here, now.

Is Jacob wrestling God or an Angel sent from Esau? It matters not – for, for him who loves the Lord, all things are God working out his salvation. All angels are divine messengers, no matter who they are guarding. Esau’s angel cannot but be doing God’s will any more or less than any other angel.

As the Rabbis teach, “Only in the Messianic era will the world experience the wholesomeness of the restored relationship between Esau and Jacob, between matter and spirit, between body and soul.”

We are in that era now: these words are fulfilled in your hearing. Indeed, for most of the Church Fathers any theophany in the Older Scriptures is God the Son – this Angel, the Burning Bush, the voice on Sinai. God thw Father speaks, yes, but his word is the Son. God has become man and flesh and spirit are returned to their rightful relationship. Even in the things you fear, Rejoice! God is mysteriously working for your salvation and healing.

Patience is a Virtue

JMJ
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The Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Advent (A1)

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient with it
until it receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.

James 5:7 (NABRE)

WHY IS JAMES ASKING US to be patient? The notes to my Lectors’ Handbook suggest this is a reading looking to hope in the 2nd Coming of Messiah. But That seems odd if you read the whole pericope: what’s that bit about the farmer? And the complaining thing? What’s that? Indeed, as the notes in the Handbook seem to indicate, this reads rather like a bunch of random wisdom sayings strung together here that we might have some pithy quotes to lob about. But I don’t think so.

If you pull back just a bit in the Epistle of St James, there’s a longer argument going on here that starts in the previous chapter. I think the whole argument runs from 4:1 to 5:11. That’s a bit long to take in at Mass, or even for a 7 Minute Homily, but let me sketch out the argument:

4:1 Why are there fights in the Church?
4:2 – 4 Because you covet things other people have, you’re jealous about who has what position, power, etc. In fact, that just shows you’re still friends with the world rather than God. Then James calls us unfaithful wives (to God), repeating something the Prophets said about Israel all the time.
4:5-10 if we are, therefore, humble before God, he will fight for us against these temptations. Humble yourself before God and he will lift you up.
4:11-12 We have an example of pride now. Gossip. Remember, these temptations lead to fights in the Church so…. don’t speak evil of each other. No backstabbing gossip, etc. That would cut off most of Coffee Hour sometimes. If you speak evilly of a brother or sister in Christ it means you’re judging them. NOTICE PLEASE that St James doesn’t seem to care if your comments are right or wrong. He says we talk this way because of our own pride. Pride leads to covetousness. That causes fights in the Church. STOP HAVING FIGHTS IN THE CHURCH. See?
4:13-17 We have another example of pride now: we make boasts all the time. Look what I plan to do tomorrow. Watch me do this thing. Look, Ma! No hands! All such boasting is evil. (Side note: this would end most staff meetings and all advertising.)
5:1-6 James carries this into an example of the example: rich people, who tend to boast in their wealth, are, in fact, being unjust all over the place. God will get them. Don’t envy them, don’t covet their wealth. We see that covetousness is a sign of friendship with the world up in Chapter 4, and that’s what causes fights in the church…
Finally getting to our passage today.
5:7 THEREFORE BE PATIENT, waiting for the Lord to return. What has that to do with anything? Why is there a farmer?

Because God is doing something here. God is working on the rich. On the prideful. On the Gossips. On the unfaithful wife, the Church herself. God is doing something here and he – the faithful farmer – is willing to wait until the early rain (Baptism) and the latter rain (the Holy Spirit) fall on all us sinners and make us into a fruitful harvest. SO WE should also be patient with one another not judging each other – or even COMPLAINING about things as they are – because such judging (back to 4:1) arises from pride and covetousness. And causes fights in the Church. So…

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Update: by way of application, this is about a lot of things. It reminds me of the old tshirt wisdom, “Be patient, God’s not finished with me yet.” Reading that as a prayer for humility on the part of the wearer and the reader is important. I’m a jackass, I know, but God is working on me…

This passage usually gets spun as a ugent advice along the lines of Sure, Jesus isn’t coming back now but wait some more. It seems rather to mean, Thankfully, Messiah hasn’t yet come back so we have some time to let him work on things in us.

Finally, to let God do that work in you (or in me) you have to be humble, don’t complain, bear with each other, and let God use the tools he has picked to do the job.

Indefectibili Foedere

The Readings for the 3rd Monday in Advent (A2)

Dixit auditor sermonum Dei, qui visionem Omnipotentis intuitus est, qui cadit, et sic aperiuntur oculi ejus :
The utterance of one who hears what God says, and knows what the Most High knows, of one who sees what the Almighty sees, enraptured, and with eyes unveiled.

JMJ
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Does it strike you as odd that Balaam is not Jewish and yet he is a Prophet? This has always bothered me. At most he must be a Ba’al worshiper who got things right for once once, right? But no. He seems to be quite connected with the God of Israel – even if he is not a member of the tribe. The thing with the donkey (a couple of chapters earlier in the book) makes it clear that he’s on speaking terms with the same God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How does that make sense?

The Dominican Tertiaries have been reading our way through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is not a teaching document, per se, but a source document: intended for teachers, clergy, and magisterial officials (eg Canon Lawyers) this long document of 2856 numbered paragraphs is intended to list out all the teachings of the Church. It is not, however infallible and some sections can be changed or even removed. The teaching on the Virgin Birth of Jesus, for example, does not have the same magisterial import as the teaching on the death penalty. The latter, therefore, can be sifted to more fine detail as the Church grows in her understanding of God and the world in which we live. (I see Pope Francis’ teaching on the Death Penalty to be less a “change” in teaching then a realization that no government in the world today – especially the USA – has shown itself to be just in the use of this punishment.)

This month we began reading Part Four: Christian Prayer. I was counseled to read this portion by Daniel Glaze who urged me to read Part 4 right after I was brought into the Catholic Church. OK, so now I’m getting around to reading it. This Part 4 has the answer to my Balaam question, I think.

Prayer is lived in the first place beginning with the realities of creation. The first nine chapters of Genesis describe this relationship with God as an offering of the first-born of Abel’s flock, as the invocation of the divine name at the time of Enosh, and as “walking with God. Noah’s offering is pleasing to God, who blesses him and through him all creation, because his heart was upright and undivided; Noah, like Enoch before him, “walks with God.” This kind of prayer is lived by many righteous people in all religions. In his indefectible covenant with every living creature, God has always called people to prayer.

CCC ¶ 2569 Emphasis added

It’s the indefectible covenant (Indefectibili Foedere) with every living creature that lept out and grabbed me tonight. God is always calling all people to prayer.

At the end of today’s reading, Balaam even prophesies about Messiah: I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel. Here is this pagan through whom God is indicating not only his present plans but also his future plans: a reason why he cannot curse Israel at all.

God has an “old testament” up and running amid the peoples of the middle east outside of the Israelites. God is getting everyone ready for what, or rather who is coming at Christmas.

In later books, Darius the King of Persia is called “Messiah” and God has plans for him. And the Apostles will discover that God’s been working through everyone getting them ready. When the first evangelists get to China, they will find that Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Buddha have prepared the way for the Gospel, just as Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah did in Israel. See, while we might want at Christmas to focus on an ever-smaller circle (All Israel > Southern Kingdom > Tribe of Judah > Jesse’s family >Joseph and Mary > Jesus) God is, in fact, aiming for nothing less than all of us. This is his Indefectibili Foedere cum omnibus animabus viventibus, his Indefectible Covenant with every living creature.

Evangelism, done properly, is this: to enter into relationship with another person so deeply that, in that communion of Love, the two of you discover how God has worked with them in their life to prepare them for the Gospel. This is their personal “old testament”, a record of God’s covenant with them. Then we walk, carefully accompanying them, through the record of their life to the point of decision: can they trust enough to let go and enter into a relationship with this God that has called them to prayer?

He’s calling all of us to prayer. So we explore, we grow in prayer, we wait expectantly for the Answer to come. There is only one answer, which is Jesus. For, ultimately, there is only one prayer: that of the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Gaudete

The Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent (A2)

Tu es, qui venturus es, an alium exspectamus?
Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another?

JMJ
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You know what? Life is not like we post it on Facebook. It’s ugly. The vast majority sees the world rather different than we do as wealthy westerners. I’m assuming that if you have a computer and an internet connection to read my ramblings, you’re wealthy by global standards. Prove me wrong. Most of our Christian ancestors lived on much less than you can imagine. Many of them died early of just living in their poverty. Others were killed outright for their faith. We complain about parking and the oppressions of our taxes. We also have fresh, clean water indoors (unless your in Flint, Michigan, under the Obama or Trump administrations) and until recently, freedom.

Do you ever have doubts? Your life may not be at all like someone from Flint or who lives in total poverty on the street outside your door, but do you ever wake up at night and wonder, What, exactly, am I doing? Have you ever gotten to the end of your chain and had to turn around and go back because, No, really. What am I doing? Have you ever bet literally everything on the course of events and yet still, Have I gone too far?

John the Baptist did.

The Fathers really go out of their way to find a reason for this scene in prison. John had known and recognized Jesus before they were born. From within the womb until now, he’s known who Jesus is and what he’s doing.

Are you really the one?

John the Baptist is in prison for calling out the adultery of the ancient world’s equivalent of Donald Trump, Jr. He’s not quite as bad as his father, but he’s still driven by passions and very petty. In the end it was Junior’s lust and pride that put John in jail, and the jealousy of Junior’s illicit bed partner – his brother’s wife. Today John would have been called a hater for denying the love of two consenting adults. We’d ban him from Twitter, and the president would add “Sad” to a few late-night binges.

But Herod put John in jail: that’s nothing like our idea of jail today. It’s more like being sent to “Special Detention” under President Obama. Where you’re in the dark, alone, except for a guard who tortures you in the dark so you can’t see his face, and you wonder if you’re family is alive or dead. Eventually, you wonder even if you’re alive or dead and you wonder how a Nobel Laureate gets you here. Herod’s jail is more like a dark hole where they can’t even see to take pictures of you and post them on social media.

All of the prophets have their moments of doubt. Moses breaks faith with God, Abraham can’t quite wait for his wife to have a child, the chains of slavery entered into Joseph’s very soul, it is said. And John’s faith weakened a bit. I can’t imagine how dark a hole it must have been, but my faith gets weak when there’s a cloudy day. So I can totally imagine this Obamian/Trumpian nightmare might be bad enough to make the greatest of prophets ask one – but really only one – question.

Are you the one or should we wait for another?

Gaudete. Rejoice! The introit for today begins, “Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete.” Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with Eucharist, let your requests be known to God.

That’s the real lesson. Things suck, but rejoice.

John might have had doubts (so did Peter and the others). But Jesus says, look: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.

And exactly what is that good news?

The Latin says “pauperes evangelizantur” the poor are evangelized. That might make you think of Billy Graham preaching pie in the sky, by and by when you die, or Joel Osteen preaching, “give me the money in your wallet so God can make me rich”. The poor are sucker-punched.

But the Greek says something more radical than Antifa, and more powerful than a signal-boosted occupation chant.

Jesus sas, πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται ptoxoi ewangelizontai. The poor are Gospelized. You’re going to want to know what a Gospel is first: it’s not a religious text. It’s a political text. When Augustus Caesar or, by this time, Tiberius Caesar conquered your area, his soldiers showed up at your city gates and “read you the good news”: Tiberius Caesar is now in charge and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll open these gates and give over peaceably. Jesus is not just saying “Oh, you know, peace, joy, love… can’t we all get along?” He’s actually saying, “I’m in charge here now. And you’re free – really, truly free – in ways that are going to make your former fellow slaves rather angry at you. Caesar is not Kyrios any more. I am.

The poor are made into the largest citizen army ever: for the kingdom of God.

And all the crap in this world – the sickness, the anger, the oppression, the slavery to Caesar – are done away with because while their accidents remain, their substance is changed: your marriage bed is now a sacrament of salvation, your wage slavery is a key to the virtue of humility, your status as the lowest of the low is now superseded by God going even lower to raise up everyone.

This is the Kingdom of God: tents on the street where saints dwell in their own light, communing with the Divine in prayer, saving even the wealthy around them.

Gaudete means “rejoice” and the Greek word (in Philippians) is Χαίρετε, chairete. It’s the first word spoken by the Angel to Mary when he brings her the Good News of the Incarnation. Χαῖρε, chaire. Rejoice! It’s the first word of the Gospel! Rejoice!

Can you stand to be this happy?

Doubts happen. Questions happen. The key is not to cave in to them. You need to ask your questions and then let the answers be given.

Christmas in Purgatory

✙

JMJ

The Readings for Saturday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Et quis poterit cogitare diem adventus ejus, et quis stabit ad videndum eum? ipse enim quasi ignis conflans.
And who shall be able to think of the day of his coming? and who shall stand to see him? for he is like a refining fire.
Happy Christmas: we’re doomed, here in the wealthy, bullying west. We’re doomed. But I hope it is to our salvation. How can that be? Yesterday’s post didn’t rant about our personal doom: but rather about the doom of this unhealthy culture of consume and die in which we are engulfed. We are so busy building it up because we can that we never even stop to ask if we should. (We shouldn’t. God’s got a way out. Through him:

  • The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. – Exodus 13:21
  • and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people, for You, O LORD, are seen eye to eye, while Your cloud stands over them; and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. – Numbers 14:14
  • who goes before you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go. – Deuteronomy 1:33
  • Then He led them with the cloud by day And all the night with a light of fire. – Psalm 78:14
  • then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. – Isaiah 4:5
  • At the morning watch, the LORD looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. – Exodus 14:24
  • It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. – Genesis 15:17
  • “I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire. – Daniel 7:9
  • “Then the LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form–only a voice. – Deuteronomy 4:12
  • “So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, – Deuteronomy 4:15
  • “Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? – Deuteronomy 4:33
  • “The LORD spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire, – Deuteronomy 5:4
  • “You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. – Deuteronomy 5:24
  • “He wrote on the tablets, like the former writing, the Ten Commandments which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. – Deuteronomy 10:4
  • “Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. – Deuteronomy 4:36
  • ‘For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? – Deuteronomy 5:26
  • Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. – Exodus 19:18
  • And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. – Exodus 24:17
  • For behold, the LORD will come in fire And His chariots like the whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. – Isaiah 66:15
  • May our God come and not keep silence; Fire devours before Him, And it is very tempestuous around Him. – Psalm 50:3
  • “From the brightness before Him Coals of fire were kindled. – 2 Samuel 22:13
  • From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds, Hailstones and coals of fire. – Psalm 18:12

God’s way out is passing us through his refining fire. This is the very meaning of Purgatory: the refining fire of God’s love, making us pure. Will it hurt, mostly. But we will be blessed to know the pangs of love.
And when there is something here, that is not for our salvation, be it drugs, sex, politics, a relationship, television, whatever; it will take fire to burn it out of us. We are doomed: we, the collective, cultural matrix we’ve built up. Each of us, inside it, are the icons of God, but you can’t tell me the world we have made is that at all. We are doomed.
If we die with this wrapped around us, God love will still take care of it. 
But if we pass through the Jihad (Syrian Catholic), the Ascesis (Greek Catholic), the Podvig (Slavic Byzantine Catholic), the holy Struggle of purification here, while we’re alive: we can offer it all up to God and, maybe, prevent others from falling into the same traps, the same pains, the same struggles as we. 
There is one last reference: too those who have rising beyond the fire:

And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. – Revelation 15:2

For those who, by grace, make it through… and grace is only more fire… there is glory.

Why We’re Doomed

JMJ

The Readings for Friday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Fecit potentiam in brachio suo;
Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede,
   et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis,
   et divites dimisit inanes.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones
   and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
   and the rich he has sent away empty.

Christianity was a revolution in Roman society because it taught the poor that they could care for themselves by sharing what little they had.

From the beginning, though, the Rich, also welcomed at God’s table, had trouble. So much of their lives had been spent acquiring stuff and holding on to stuff, that it was hard to shift gears. Ananias and Sapphira sold some property – which means they had it to sell in the first place. But they couldn’t bring themselves to give the money to the Church.

The Corinthians couldn’t bring themselves to even share meals with the poor and the slaves who were limited in their time to come and go. Paul yelled at them and changed their communion rites.

The wealthy church in Rome was so decadent that Benedict left.

Francis…

This list goes on.

One thing about 21st Century Capitalism: everyone is the poorest. Nearly no one in America has any conception of anyone under them in the pecking order. All of us, though, know someone higher up. We are quite willing to mark ourselves are “one of the 99%” or whatever you want to call it, but we’re all pretty equal down here. It’s them folks, up there, that you have to watch out for.

I learned this while protesting my oppression. I’m in a class of people who tend to have higher income, more college degrees, better homes, and more disposable income than many Americans. But, you know, I’m oppressed. And I never figured out why the children of slaves couldn’t see that.

We’re all equal down here. It’s those folks up there you have to worry about.

What I’ve discovered over the years is that everyone needs someone to hate and, recently, it’s been the rich. So: it can’t be me. Don’t hate me! I live in a basement apartment with one place to sit and and I sleep on the floor. OK, I pay more for my basement than my parents have ever paid in monthly mortgage payments, Rogue Ales are my house wines, and I get new stuff whenever I want. But I’m one of you.

We’re all equal down here. It’s those folks up there you have to worry about.

And then one day I realized I was those folks up there. Most of the world doesn’t care who I voted for in the recent election. Most of the world sees major personal differences between our various presidents, but most of the world sees no economic or policy differences. Yes this one is brash, that one is colored different, that one over there seems quite and stupid. But we’ve never changed our north star: economic hegemony over the entire world so that we can have all the stuff.

We’re way up there.

Until recently that was clear.

The thing about the pecking order is, though, the higher up you get the harder you have to peck to keep the masses under you.

And so, it’s only logical, that someone would eventually start pulling the rug out from under the feet of the middle class, even the upper middle class.

The proud are being scattered now in our conceit.
Rich people, turning against rich people, to fight it out over tax refunds and exemptions.

We are doomed.

We’re getting what we deserved. For while we were fighting with each other about “abortion rights” and saying we were “being oppressed” by cake bakers, we were just killing off the living in other parts of the world in order to have cheap plastic junk at WalMart.

When the poor are “lifted up” it won’t be any of us reading these pages. The Meek and the Lowly are not writing these words, nor are the hungry using their smart phones to read it.

We are doomed.

Not my president, we say. Even as we call him all the names he calls us. Even as we refuse to put forward candidates who will work Justice, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with God. I’m with Her we say in self-righteous indignation, as neither she (nor her husband) ever did anything to fix the problems of the poor in this country or in others. Mostly in others, really. For every trade agreement only made it worse, feeding the pockets of the rich, and allowing some of us to pretend we were rich because we got more stuff.  And all the while dumping on the poor; the real poor. And now that the poor are running around the world in terror from the horror we (or our proxies) have built in their countries, we build walls to keep them out.

We are doomed.

All the while we deploy our cheapest political tricks: divide and conquer. Your women should be free like ours. Your political minorities are way more oppressed than ours.  We can fix it. Regime change, Neoliberalism, cheap electronics, it doesn’t matter.

We are doomed.

We are doomed because one day (again) the God we claim to believe in will do what he always does: casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. Filling the hungry with good things he’s going to send the rich (that’s us) away empty. Starving. Lost. Dead.

Maybe that will save us. So, come quickly, Lord. And stir up the crap again.

Belushi, Geer, and God… (ok, and Solomon.)

Chagall’s Song of Solomon 1958
✙
JMJ

The Readings for Thursday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Similis est dilectus meus capreæ, hinnuloque cervorum. En ipse stat post parietem nostrum, respiciens per fenestras, prospiciens per cancellos. En dilectus meus loquitur mihi. SPONSUS: Columba mea, in foraminibus petræ, in caverna maceriæ, ostende mihi faciem tuam, sonet vox tua in auribus meis: vox enim tua dulcis, et facies tua decora.
My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart. Behold he standeth behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking through the lattices. My beloved speaks: My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, shew me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears: for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely.
Thus is fulfilled, as I posted yesterday. The Christian tradition follows Jewish tradition on this love story: the Bride is the Church (the New Israel) and the Groom is Christ. For Jews it’s Israel and the Holy One.

This image of Christ, peaking through the latice at us, of the love watching through the window, is one of the best images ever, as he sings to us, “My dove, hiding in the cleft of the wall…” It’s erotic. It’s romantic. It’s… rather creepy really. If we listen with our modern ideas of sex and sexuality. Why do you want your lover watching you through the window shades? Why does your lover want to?

John Belushi in Animal House (1978)

This is our ideas of human sexuality: our passions run amok so much so that we can’t even begin to image God as lover without it getting creepy. The creepy part, though, is not what God is doing in this verse: it’s our imaginations.

The Virginal conception and birth of Jesus doesn’t just seem “hyper-pious” it seems improbable, if not impossible: because no one we know is a virgin any more. How can two, normal teenagers (Joseph and Mary) have abstained from Sex? Even following the tradition of the Church where Joseph was elderly, we know – right? – we know that Old Guys marry Young Girls to have more sex. We know this.
We know with all our faith that my body doesn’t control me, that old people need Viagra, that porn is normal, that men don’t watch women through windows, or they get arrested.
And that God doesn’t’ care what goes on in my bedroom.
But if we see the Church as the Bride of Christ… and that seems creepy… Maybe we’re missing something about human sexuality? How did 2,000 years of Christians and 4,000 years of Jews before that manage to handle it? And how about all those pagan places where the King was married to the land for the sake of fertility and defense? What are we missing today where God is sexless and is not empowered to pick his own pronouns through the only voice he has givne us, and where the Church is an it, not a she?
Although the Song of Songs tends to switch back and forth in voice between the Bride and the Goom, along with a few other parties, the Narrator tends to sound like the Bride: saying “My lover says…” when the Groom speaks.  Solomon has put on a woman’s voice, telling the story of how God has wooed Israel.
Larry Norman’s amazing “I’ve Got to Learn to Live Without You” (1972) is one attempt by the rocker legend to put himself into a feminine persona as he sings about Christ. (There’s another one on the series of three albums known as the Trilogy, but I can’t just now remember which song it is.) 
The Church, too, is the feminine voice, expressed mostly by men, wooed by God. Was it CS Lewis? Or someone modern writer who said that God is the ultimate power, the male, active force to the passive, receptive, female force of the entire cosmos. We are all feminine before God.
And here, in Solomon’s text, if we let it be about romance, about joy, about love, it’s not at all creepy. We’re the ones who have wandered away: we are the prostitute that God has married. We are the wayward one rescued by the strong hand that would bring us back only for love.
Richard Geer and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (1990)
Christmas really makes no sense otherwise. God has self-sacrificed out of love for us. Just how much self-sacrifice we shall see on Monday. It is so deep, so wide, so powerful that we cannot avoid it save only by callousness, cold-heartedness, and pride.

We are called to humility before this God who only wants to love us.

Will you not be wooed by him? He says you are lovely. Will you not let him hear your voice?

You came into my life, you took me off the shelf
You told my name to me and taught me what to do
But then you went away and left me by myself,
I feel completely lost and lonely without you
Why’d you go, baby? I guess you know,
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you, without you
Today I thought I saw you walking down the street
With someone else, I turned my head and faced the wall
I started crying and my heart fell to my feet
But when I looked again it wasn’t you at all
Why’d you go, baby? I guess you know,
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you, without you
It’s just no good without you, without you
It’s just no good without you, without you
It’s just no good without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you
I’ve got to learn to live without you

Thus was fulfilled.

✙
JMJ

The Readings for Wednesday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Audite ergo, domus David. Numquid parum vobis est molestos esse hominibus, quia molesti estis et Deo meo? Propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum: ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel.

Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
Our verse from Isaiah says, ecce virgo concipiet, behold a virgin shall conceive. But St Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was working with, at first, the Greek text of the Septuagint, not the Hebrew text as we know it. In Greek, the word used for the person who will conceive is “παρθένος” parthenos which not only means “virgin,” but also caries echoes of Artemis and Athene, and includes the concept of virgo intacta, The Hebrew, however, uses only the word עַלְמָ֗ה almah. It means only “young woman” or the rather formal title of “Maiden” without meaning, specifically, “virgin”.

There is a story from the Church’s tradition that, when the LXX was being translated, a young worker came to this passage and wanted to write the Greek word for girl, νύμφη nymphe but the Holy Spirit intervened and said parthenos. The young man said, “But Lord, that word means young girl.” And the Holy Spirit said, “Write parthenos and I will show you the fulfillment of it.” This young man, so the Tradition states, was Simeon, who was kept alive to a great age to see the fulfillment of this promise when the Blessed Virgin presented Our Lord in the Temple at Candlemas.

But even so, the story discussed has nothing to do with Jesus or Mary, right? There’s a war going on, and the King wants to know if God is with us or against us in this war. Isaiah says, God is with David. And ask anything you want as a sign.  The king says he dares not tempt God – even though it is at God’s own command. But God says, “Fine, if you will not ask, I will show anyway…” This has nothing to do with Messiah or anything. But the Angel says it does. How is that?

For the early Church and for the Holy Spirit, for the Apostles and the Patristic communities, the entire world was pointing to Jesus. The quest was to find out how. The Old Testament must, in all its ways, prefigure Messiah. So we must meditate and pray to open the text. The same way that the Angel said this unrelated verse from Isaiah is a Messianic Prophecy, so also is the passage from Genesis about the head of the serpent, so also the making-mute of Zachariah is a sign that the Old Covenant is done, so also Samson is a sign of John the Baptist, Judith of the Blessed Virgin, Daniel in the Lions’ Den of Christ in Hell, the Red Sea of Baptism, Manna of the Eucharist, Egypt or Babylon a sign of “this world” and the escape therefrom a sign of our Christian growth… the list goes on.

The image at the top of the page is of the Welsh Poet, Taliesin. Taliesin seems a bridge between the pagan darkness in Wales and the Christian revolution of Arthur. In fact, the poetry of Taliesin (as we have it) weaves together the two Wales into a unified whole that allows us to the see the Christian truth foreshadowed in the past, a Pagan Old Testament, if you will, in the myths and stories the Cymry told each other in their camps and homes long before St David and the missionaries ever got there.

Certainly the ancient Bards of Wales never intended or imagined Christian context for their stories, but once the Truth was revealed, all could see He had been present all along in their quest.

So it can be in our lives: once Christ is revealed as not “a true story” but as “The Truth” then anything that was true before is, lo, a bit of Christ present and still true. Yet a fuller, deeper, and more complex meaning is revealed.

This was how the first Christians read the Bible. We inherit their readings in our Tradition, but the skill seems lost. It’s hard to look at a Biblical Story and not want to see the literal truth or untruth of the letters. If the Bible is not History what good is it? But the Bible is history. That’s just not all it is.  If that’s all it is, it might as well be any other history text.

But the Bible, to the Church Fathers, is more like a Tarot Deck than a History Book. Prophecies are Fulfilled not because they were literal predictions that literally came true in a verbatim, literal way. So boring. They are fulfilled, they are Made Full of the Holy Spirit and bring forth the Word of God like Mary.  They are signs that await the explication of their fullest meaning in Christ’s teaching, in the Church, in the action of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of the Saints.

I said Tarot Deck and I mean no scandal: anyone can go out and buy a book of “the meanings of the Tarot Cards” and learn that the Ace of Cups means a new love affair, but a proper reading of cards, of stars, of the I Ching… of anything, really… is not just “fortune telling” but rather visual meditation. Done right any discussion of any set of Symbols should lead us to Christ (if we’re telling the Truth). This is why those who Translate the Bible to be “inclusive” are missing the point. We’re not the message, the subject, or topic of the Bible: Jesus is.

Like Taliesin wove his text of Pagan Past into a Christian Future, the Church has done the same with the Old Testament, missionaries have done where ever the Gospel has gone, and you need to do the same with your life in the Church. Where has God acted that brought you to the Faith you now have? If you are not in the faith, how has your life brought you at all to reading these words? Here God is acting.

The music is playing all around us, and all we need to do is sing.

A translation of Deus Duw Delwat

O God, the God of formation,
Ruler, strengthener of blood.
Christ Jesus, that guards.
Princes loud-proclaiming go their course
For a decaying acquisition.
The praising thy mercy.
There hath not been here;
O supreme Ruler;
There hath not been; there will not be,
One so good as the Lord.
There hath not been born in the day of the people
Any one equal to God.
And no one will acknowledge
Any one equal to him.
Above heaven, below heaven,
There is no Ruler but he.
Above sea, below sea,
He created us.
When God comes
A great noise will pierce us,
The day of judgment terribly.
Messengers from the door,
Wind, and sea, and fire.
lightning and thunder
A number without flattery.
The people of the world groaning
Will be concealed.
Kings will shudder [that] day,
Woe awaits them!
When the recompenser shall appear,
Let the heaven appear below.
A ruddy wind will be brought
Out to the cinder,
Until the world is as desolate
As when created.

Do not thy passions counteract
What thy lips utter?
Thy going in thy course into valleys,
Dark without lights.
The love-diffusing [Lord] will separate us.
The land of worldly weather,
A wind will melt the trees:
There will pass away every tranquillity
When the mountains are burnt.
There will be again inhabitants
With horns before kings;
The mighty One will send them,
Sea, and land, and lake.
There will be again a trembling terror,
And a moving of the earth,
And above every field,
And ashes the rocks will be;
With violent exertion, concealment,
And burning of lake.
A wave do ye displace,
A shield do ye extend
To the travelling woe,
And violent exertion through grief.
And inflaming through fury
Between heaven and earth.

I have not been without battle.
Bitter affliction was frequent
Between me and my cousins.
Songs and minstrels.
And the hymns of angels,
Will raise from the graves,
They will entreat from the beginning.
They will entreat together publicly,
On so great a destiny.
Those whom the sea has destroyed
Will make a great shout,
At the time when cometh
He, that will separate them.
Do not thy passions counteract
What thy lips utter?
Thy going in thy course into valleys,
Dark without lights.
And mine were his words.
And mine were his languages.

The lance was struck
And my side was pierced.
It will be struck to you also…
I have not been without battle.
Bitter affliction was frequent
Between me and my cousins.
Frequent trials fell
Between me and my fellow-countrymen.
There was frequent contention
Between me and the wretched.
Those that placed me on the cross
I knew when young.
That drove me on the tree,
My head hung down.
Stretched were my two feet,
So sad their destiny.
Stretched with extreme pain
The bones of my feet.
Stretched were my two arms,
Their burden will not be.
Stretched were my two shoulders,
So diligently it was done.
Stretched were the nails,
Within my heart.
Stretched was the spiking,
Between my two eyes.
Thick are the holes
Of the crown of thorns in my head.
The lance was struck
And my side was pierced.
It will be struck to you also,
As your right hand (struck me).
To you there will be no forgiveness,
For piercing me with spears.
And the Ruler we knew not
When thou wert hung.
Ruler of heaven, Ruler of every people!
We knew not, O Christ! that it was thou.
If we had known thee,
Christ, we should have refrained from thee.

Do not the brave know
The greatness of their progeny?
Ye have committed wickedness
Against the Creator.
A hundred thousand angels
Are to me witnesses,
Who came to conduct me
After my hanging,
When hanging cruelly,
Myself to deliver me
In heaven there was trembling
When I had been hung.
When I cried out Eli!
Do not the brave know
The greatness of their progeny?
A country present will meet thee,
And while it may possibly be yours,
Three hundred thousand years save one,
A short hour of the day of everlasting life.

But. But. I want to know…

✙

JMJ

The Readings for Tuesday 3 Advent (Year 2):

Unde hoc sciam? 
Whereby shall I know this?
John is the last prophet. There are no prophets after John the Baptist because Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets. God needs no other voice because God has spoken finally and that word is Jesus.

An Angel is sent to Zacharia with this news, and the same Angel is sent to Mary. Both of them are surprised. Zachary, in asking how can I know, though is all of us. He uses the same word for “know” as Mary does, to the same Angel, really. 

How shall I know this… 
I have not known a man…
And it is the same word used in the Greek LXX text of the Old Testament:
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
In all these instances it means exactly the same thing: Experience; deep, intimate experience.
This is difference between Zachary and Maria.
Mary says how can this be, for I have no knowledge of these things…
Zach says how can I come to know this: how can I believe you…
This is our age, right? Most of us, I think, tend towards Zachary. We want not only to know… but to know how to know, to know how we can trust someone before we get suckered into their game. We don’t want to be hoodwinked, taken for fools, left with everyone laughing at us.
What if Zach had come running out of that temple with news of an angel and, nine months later, nothing? For the rest of his (already long life) he’d be the guy that sees fake angels with wish fulfillment promises, and a barren wife. How can I know this? Ya, sure, you’re making promises and you fly out of here and nine months from now how can I get a refund if this all goes bust?
Mary says, “Tell me how this is happening for I know nothing of these things.”
Zacharia says, “Show me now.”
It is often said that we live in an age of doubt. But this is not true. We live in an age of intense faith.  It is misplaced and misidentified, but it is a strong faith. We believe things we read on the internet strongly and deeply. Worse, we believe headlines without reading the stories. We like posts based on header photos and we don’t even read the stuff (or the headlines). We pay no attention to the other side of any argument, believing instead what our side says about the other side. We reject religious leaders and yet follow other leaders who use religious words. (Listen to a scientist talk about not needing religion or philosophy using the words of religion and philosophy.) We praise political leaders in the way we once followed religious teachers and we dare not question them in exactly the same way; or, if I can question my leader, you certainly cannot.
We live in an age of great faith. We are surrounded by not the “nones” of surveys, but rather the “followers of anything but Christ”. I claim to follow science only, but I will deny the proofs of science if I don’t like them, or don’t “feel” them.

We want to know. We want to experience. But we don’t want to have faith.

And yet faith is required first. Always. I can’t experience God without first trusting him to be there (even if only a tiny bit). And Faith is a gift of God’s prevenient grace. Even that requires our cooperation, our leaning in to that grace. God won’t zap us with faith, but he whispers it to us if we unstop our ears. We can, without compulsion, sing along with the music already playing.

So, which will it be: Mary or Zacharia? Honestly both of them got what God promised, but one got a bit more. Both are saints, but Mary’s silent faith speaks volumes more than Zachary’s mute challenge.

How can we know?
Trust first.