Laetare Sunday

Tomorrow is Laetare Sunday. The liturgical mid-point of Lent - the arithmetic mid-point was actually this past Thursday - is traditionally called Laetare (“Rejoice”) Sunday, because of the opening word of the Latin Introit for this Sunday’s Mass (based on Isaiah 66:10-11) - Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite, omnes que diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis: ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae.

Being half-way through Lent probably mattered much more back when Lent was really taken seriously, but it still serves as a significant marker on the road toward Easter – both the Easter that is three weeks away and the eternal Easter, which is our ultimate goal. So, even though it is Lent, the Church lightens its Lenten demeanor tomorrow, allowing flowers to decorate altars and more extensive organ playing. Most noticeably, the Lenten purple is relieved by the use of rose-colored vestments, which are what really make Laetare Sunday so noticeable.

Given the state of the world, it may sometimes seem as if all of life were one long Lent. Certainly, the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, self-denial, and charity are necessary all year long - and all life long. Laetare Sunday is less a break from that dimension of Christian life than it is a highlighting of the ultimately joyful focus of such a life.

Appropriately, Laetare Sunday has also been the traditional day for the annual blessing of the Golden Rose, a gold ornament blessed by the Pope and bestowed as a papal honor. It has been given to kings, queens, princes, princesses, governments, cities, churches, and shrines. During his 2008 pilgrimage to the U.S., Pope Benedict XVI bestowed it on the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. According to Pope Innocent III (1160-1216): “As Laetare Sunday, the day set apart for this function, represents love after hate, joy after sorrow, and fullness after hunger, so does the rose, by its color, odor, and taste, designate love, joy, and satiety respectively.”

In YouTube's rich treasury of historic videos, I have fooudn at least two (one British, one Italian) of Queen Elena of Italy receiving the Golden Rose in 1937 on the occasion of her 25th wedding anniversary: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=7321 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTh6iGG2RAI.

Born Princess Jelena of Montenegro in 1873, she became a Catholic and married the future King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy in 1896, becoming Queen Elena of Italy in 1900. Her frugal husband once remarked that, if he were not so careful about his money, the Queen would completely impoverish them by giving it all away to the poor. She died in exile in France in 1952. The cause for her canonization was introduced in 2001.

Speaking of candidates for sainthood, today marks the 6th anniversary of the death of the Venerable Servant of God, Pope John Paul II, who will be beatified one month from now on May 1, after which we will be able to pray: Blessed John Paul II, pray for us.

April Fool's Legislation

Like everyone else, I suppose I have been the victim of the occasional April Fool's Day prank; but being basically a somewhat dour person, I have never really taken much interest in the day itself or the silly customs connected with it. (I do find it mildly interesting that historians seem to connect its origin with the 16th-century change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar - but only mildly).

Unfortunately, however, it seems that April Fool's Day is increasingly becoming an all-year event in our peculiar political culture, but the consequences are much more problematic than mere pranks.

In Washington, we have the apparently permanent unwillingness of Congressmen to grow up enough to do that most fundamental function of a legislative body - pass an annual budget. Instead we have the ongoing soap opera of short-term "continuing resolutions," each passed under the imminent threat of a governmenal "shutdown" - precisely the kind of classic made-for-TV circus that nowadays takes the place of democratic deliberation and debate.

As if that weren't bad enough, here on the state level we have such inanities as proposals for a separate state currency. Even worse (because actually enacted into law), the state of Tennessee two weeks ago (almost April Fool's Day) passed something called the "Health Freedom Act," which declares it to be "the public policy of this state" that every person has the right "to refuse to purchase health insurance." Needless to say, this law has little to do with either "health" or "freedom," but a lot to do with the obsession in certain quarters with opposing - at any cost -the health insurance reform passed by Congress just a year ago (childishly referred to as "Obamacare" by its right-wing opponents).

To be fair, there is a legitimate debate about the constitutionality of that reform's provision requiring indiviudals to purchase health insurance. Sooner or later (preferably sooner than later), that question will find its way to the Supreme Court and a legal precedent will be set, one way or the other. In the interim, however, is state nullification of national legislation a rational answer?

It's not like we haven't been down this road before. This spring, we are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, which supposedly settled once and for all that we really are one country with a national government. In the run-up to the dissolution of the Union, the conflict between national sovereignty and the parochial interests of states was a constant theme - and not just in relation to slavery. It came up in "Federalist" New England in oppositon to the President Madison's (admittedly stupid) War of 1812. It came up again with a vengeance in the 1830s, when South Carolina sought to treat as null and void certain federal tariffs. Then, it was no less a southerner than President Andrew Jackson who, fulfilling his constitutional duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," took on the nullificationists - warning them that the course they proposed to pursue would be "one of ruin and disgrace to the very state whose rights they affect to support."

Where is an Andrew Jackson now when we need his like again?

The Crucifix in Italy's Classrooms

When the Kingdom of Italy was created in Turin on March 17, 1861, uniting the northern Piedmontese Kingdom of Sardinia with the southern Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (whose Bourbon monarchy had recently been overthrown by Garibaldi's army), the new kingdom was aggressively secular - "aggressive," that is, in an Italian sense, what we might call "aggressive Italian style." This was very much the spirit of the age - that is, of 19th-century liberal nationlism. Given the Pope's persistent sovereignty over Rome, it was perhaps inevitable that any nationalist movement aimed at Italian unity (liberal or not, although in fact 19th-century nationalist movements tended to be liberal) would be anti-clerical in character. This was so despite the fact that the reigning house of the new Kingdom of Italy, the House of Savoy (one of the oldest royal houses in Europe) had a long history of devotion to the Church (and was - until King Umberto II's death in 1983 - the owner of the holy relic, the Shroud of Turin). The bad blood between Italy and the Holy See would only escalate, of course, after Italy's conquest of Rome from the Pope in 1870, reducing the Pope-King to a "Prisoner of the Vatican."

All this changed again, of course, in 1929, when Benito Mussolini, then considered a "man sent by Providence," accomplished what the liberal governments that had preceded his had so conspicuouly failed to do - reconcile Church and State, in a way that benefited both. The Concordat that accompanied the Lateran Treaty established Catholicism as the official religion of the kingdom. My mother can still remember the day when the crucifix was restored to the school classroom.

Mussolini is long gone - as is the House of Savoy. Republican Italy retained the concordat in its constitution, however, and the crucifix stayed up in the school classrooms. Italy is now, of course, part of the EU, that anti-democratic, imperial buereaucracy that seeks to subsume all national and cultural differences under its almighty boot - a notoriously secularist boot.

The EU's twin imperatives of cultural homogenization and secularization came together in a 2009 judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that the Italian law requiring curcifixes in public school classrooms violates the "European Convention on Human Rights." Italy appealed in 2010, and won its case in a March 18, 2011, decision of the European Court of Human Rights' appellate court.

Had the decision gone the other way, one wonders what Italy might have done. Personally, I would have loved to have seen Italy defy the EU Court and assert its proper sovereignty over its own internal affairs and historic culture. Given the increasingly perilous condition of the Eu (brought on in large part by its foolhardy decision to adopt the Euro), perhaps member states might have found the courage to defy the tyranny of Brussels bureaucrats. Perhaps not.

In any event, the Court ruled in Italy's favor, but did so on such bizarre grounds that one wonders what the judges might have been thinking. If the Court had simply ruled in favor of the crucifix on the grounds that the presence of the crucifix in the public school classroom (like the crucifix in Quebec's National Assembly or "In God We Trust" on American currency) is part of the coutntry's historic and cultural heritage, that would have made sense - and would have been a welcome recognition both of Italian sovereignty. Likewise, arguing that the presence of the crucifix in the public school classroom reflects the obvious will of the overwhelming majoirty of Italians woudl have been a welcome argument - an expression of some modest deference ont he part of the EU bureaucracy to that most un-EU value, democracy. However, the Court went further with truly weird arguments suggesting that the presence of the crucifix had no really religious significance and coveyed no really religious message.

All who believe in democracy and national sovereignty should certainly support the continued presence of the crucifix in Italy's public school classrooms. Those of us who also believe the crucifix actually signifies something more than merely a quaint cultural-historical memory must, however, be troubled by such weird reasoning. It is an undisputable historical fact that the Chrisitian religion (and indeed the Church as an institution) are inextricably linked to Western culture and to try to excise them from Western culture can only be based on historical mendacity. That said, believing Christians must also continue to assert the real, live, present-tense significance and evangelizing power of Christian symbols, and so resist their reduction to artifacts in a historical theme-park.

Living Water and More

Living in a rather humid climate, we may be tempted to romanticize the desert. In certain circles, it is even trendy to speak of spiritual “desert experiences.” In the Bible great things did indeed happen in the desert. But let’s not romanticize it! Deserts are harsh and hardly habitable places. Even relatively livable deserts like Judea and Samaria - or California - are places where water is scarce. So access to it is power. Even Jesus, wandering through Samaria at the hottest hour of the day, needed to ask for a drink. Having no bucket of his own, he must at first have seemed to the Samaritan woman as powerless indeed; but at least there was a well there!

There was, however, no well at Masah and Meribah, where, in their thirst for water the people grumbled against Moses [Exodus 17:3-7]. They grumbled. Actually they did a lot of that while in the desert. No surprise there! That’s one of the things people do when frustrated. They grumble. They complain. They attack their leaders - and one another. Poor Moses! How his faith must have been tested by all their endless complaints! “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!”

Obviously, we are looking here at very typical human behavior – both on the part of the people and Moses’ reaction – typical human behavior, unique neither to the Bible nor, for that matter, to the desert. People complain constantly, and those they complain about constantly complain - about being complained about! It’s become a commonplace observation – itself yet another complaint – that contemporary American society has been increasingly paralyzed by a corrosive climate of criticism of (so it seems) virtually everything and everyone. Sadly some of the same can be said even within the Church. Such an atmosphere takes its toll on everyone, as it obviously did with Moses.

But Moses’ frustration was far from the end of the story. God is so much bigger than our complains, quarrels, and conflicts. However deep-seated human sinfulness and however widespread its destructive consequences, God still has the final word: water will flow from the rock for the people to drink.

For us, of course, the water from the rock foreshadows that living water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman, the water that eventually flowed from the side of the dead Christ on the cross as a symbol of the water of baptism, that is meant to drown all our thirsty grumbling in his new and risen life.

In his 2011 Lenten message, Pope Benedict commented on the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman: “The question that Jesus puts to the Samaritan woman: ‘Give me a drink’ [John 4:7] … expresses the passion of God for every man and woman, and wishes to awaken in our hearts the desire for the gift of ‘a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life’ [John 4:14]: this is the gift of the Holy spirit, who transforms Christians into ‘true worshippers,’ capable of praying to the Father ‘in spirit and truth’ [John 4:23].”

The season of Lent is organized around two converging themes: conversion and repentance - and two corresponding sacraments: baptism and penance.

Foreigner though she was, the Samaritan woman was responsive to Jesus and receptive to conversion. Indeed, she became a missionary – and apparently quite a successful one, preaching not just with words but by the powerful witness of her transformed life. Perhaps the people in that Samaritan city simply sensed that what Jesus had done for her was what we all need and want – to be known and loved as we truly are and so to find the refreshing possibility of renewed life. Hence the significance of her story for those preparing for baptism at Easter.

But what about the rest of us, baptized long ago and life-long (or at least long-term) members of Christ’s Church? Have we perhaps lost some of our fervor? Are we maybe more like Israel in the desert, quarreling and testing the Lord, wondering “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” The Israelites had 40 long years ahead of them in the desert, and there would be more scenes such as this one. It seems that no matter how many times God quenches our thirst, as long as we remain in this desert, the same questions continually confronts us: “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” It’s a question we cannot escape, anymore than the Israelites could escape on their own from the desert in which they found themselves.

In Jesus, God has given us an answer once and for all. It is up to us, then, to do like the Samaritan woman and take that answer seriously, and so be able to say with Saint Paul: we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ [Romans 5:1].

Lent challenges us to rediscover the new life first offered us in the living water of baptism, offered again and again in the sacrament of penance.

Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 27, 2011.

63

One of the charms of Facebook is how it announces one's birthday to all of one's "friends." The result is a lot more "Happy Birthday" greetings than one might otherwise ordinarily expect to be getting!

Last year, I let my birthday pass without any public reference in my brand new blog. That may have been the wiser course, but successfully completing yet another year of life does seem to warrant at least some modest comment.

When I was younger, of course, a birthday was more about growing up, moving ahead, looking forward to the future. At this point, there is obviously less future to look forward to. It may yet
offer opportunities to experience. There may still be accomplishments ahead. (I certainly hope so!) Even so, at 63 one naturally tends to look back more than ahead. I also can't help but recall that, when I entered the Paulists in 1981, 63 was "retirement" age. Not that everyone necessarily "retired" at that age, of course, but it did serve as a certain sort of marker. Remembering that, it still serves as a marker (even though the Paulists have wisely long since raised the age for what we now call "Senior Ministry Status" to the much more appropriate age of 70).

As a new pastor in a new city, I certainly have enough to keep me busy and active, and I have no interest whatever in "retirement" (however labelled). On the other hand, I'm not what I was at 23 or 33 or 43 or, for that matter, even 53! However earnestly I may try to respond to the expectations and fulfill all the demands placed on me, chances are I will fall short of what someone younger and more energetic could accomplish. The value society places on being young and beautiful is partly esthetic, to be sure, but it is also functional. If ageing is about anything it is about the (hopefully gradual) diminishment of one's strength and ability. Then again, as a certain
Secretary of Defense famously said, "You go to war with the army that you have."

That said, I think there really is something to the idea that there is a certain wisdom to be found in old age - not just knowledge (although accumulated knowledge of life has certianly made me "wiser" than I was at 23 or 33 or 43 or 53), and not just experience (although again lived experience certainly has taught me a lot and has definitely maked me "wiser" for it). There is also an emotional development that seems to occur over time as one works one's way through the joys and sorrows of life, its attainments and its learning to let go (especially that). Some things that seemed to matter a lot years ago matter less - and vice versa. At any rate, things matter differently. But, while passion is certainly subdued, emotion remains acute. The desire to be loved and to love is every bit as real as it ever was, but the ability to love has undergone development - for the better.

So, thank you to everyone everywhere who has wished me a "Happy Birthday," bringing together through the accumuilation of those greetings so many strands from so many periods and places in my life. Thank you to all those who have been a part of my life and helped me become who and what I am. And thank you, God, for giving me life and the multiple opportunities to experience your presence and your action in this world!