The Wedding

Royalty and religion are a lot alike. Both present themselves to the world most prominently in magnificent and beautiful ceremonies. (Likewise, when not involved in beautiful and magnificent ceremonies, royals and clergy alike spend much of their time performing bureaucratic-type tasks and in conversation and small-talk with all sorts of people). Both royalty and religion operate most profoundly in the world of symbols and both depend heavily on emotion and sentiment for people’s affection and loyalty. Finally, I suspect that to the rationalist elites – whether of the modern or the post-modern variety – royalty and religion are both likewise thought to be rather nonsensical and anachronistic.

In contemporary Europe, there are seven hereditary kingdoms. Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and Spain each have a reigning king. Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom each have a reigning queen. In addition, Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy (presided over by a Grand Duke) and Liechtenstein is a sovereign principality (presided over by a prince), each of whom ranks as a “Royal Highness.” Finally, there is the Principality of Monaco, presided over by a Prince, who ranks as a “Serene Highness.”

In recent decades, royalty has regretably become conflated with celebrity. Monarchs and princes have come to be considered as celebrities, covered as such by the more sensationalist media, and increasingly related to as such by ordinary people. Perhaps never was this more evident than in the bizarre cult of the late Princess of Wales, mother of today’s groom, both during her tragic life and most especially in the aftermath of her tragic death. Just as in politics, where the complex details of, say, the federal budget, cannot compare as an attention-getter with the who’s up?/who’s down? Media coverage of inside-the-beltway politics, so too the constitutional duties and functions of royalty cannot compare as attention-getters with the celebrity-like personal problems and foibles of princes.

To the rationalist, it may seem that popular interest in today’s British royal wedding is precisely another – extreme – example of precisely such celebrity fascination. And, in fact, for may it may be no more than that. But there is something deeper at work.

The hereditary principle does not always produce the best possible sovereigns. In the British case, it has succeeded amazingly well in producing the eminently worthy Elizabeth II, having however earlier failed so seriously in producing the eminently unworthy Edward VIII. What the hereditary principle does do, however, is provide a people with royal family. In the life-cycles of princes – their births, their marriages, their deaths – a society experiences an icon of the highs and lows of family life that are the primary preoccupation of most people most of the time.

Fairytales aside, royal marriages have not typically been about love. But, like most marriages of most people in most societies for most of history, they have been very much about family. Any wedding – a fortiori a royal wedding – is about the family as the primary human institution, the institution charged with the formation and socialization of the next generation. As someone once said, a wedding is about the continuation of the human story. A wedding testifies to our collective commitment to continue the human story (for at least one more generation).

A royal family also symbolizes that the nation is, in some meaningful sense, also a family. Perhaps, if we Americans had such a sense of ourselves, then we would find the idea of paying taxes, for example, less some sort of imposition on our liberties and more an example of what we owe to one another as a family who are all in this together. A royal wedding, then (for those nations lucky enough to have them) serves as a kind of expression of collective hope that the nation’s story too will continue.

A Long Night

Last evening, the Knoxville Paulists gathered at Blessed John XXIII University Catholic Center to celebrate Mass with our Paulist novice, who (after spending the lenten season in Knoxville and working at John XXIII) is scheduled to be returning to the novitiate in Washington DC later today. Since we were still without power in our house, and since I needed electricity to power my CPAP machine for safe and healthy sleeping, I decided to spend the night at John XXIII in what used to be the Paulists' residence there (back in the good old days before our current home). I had spent Tuesday night at the hotel next to Immaculate Conception, but unless absolutely necessary I was not too eager to spend that kind of money a second night in a row!

The Catholic Students' Association was having its weekly meeting. So there was plenty of activity at the Center, which was a welcome alternative to spending the evening either alone in my office at the parish or in the dark at the house. Meanwhile, a band of dangerous storms was making its way up from the south - an intense mix of thunder, lightning, heavy rain, wind, and hail. Some of the students and at one point all of us had to take refuge briefly in the basement during the tornado warnings. Fortunately no tornado actually materialized - unlike what happened so tragically in Alabama, for example.

Meanwhile at about 9:05 p.m., the lights went out. So much for my plan to be able to use my machine during the night! The storms came and went - more thunder, more torrential rain, more hail. Hail is perhaps not intrinsically more frightening (if one is indoors), but it certainly adds to the scary atmosphere!

Eventually, most of the students were able to leave safely. Once the doors were locked, Fr. Charlie and I went downstairs to the office area (the former residence), and I settled down in a reclining arm chair for another machine-less night. I recited what I could of Compline from memory, then began the Rosary. I must have dozed off briefly by the end of the first mystery, when suddenly I was awakened at about 11:30 by bright office lights. The power was back! By then, the worse seemed definitely over. I hooked up my machine and managed to get some sleep. But what a strange and scary night it had been!

When I drove home early this morning, I was relieved to see that the Power Company seemed to be starting to work on our street. There was still no power when I drove to the office, but I have since been told that power has indeed been restored!

So tonight I can sleep safely in my own bed, grateful to be back in a totally technological environment - and then get up bright and early tomorrow morning to watch the Royal Wedding!

The Class of 2011

On Easter Monday, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops released some statistics on those being ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year. Continuing the downward trend of recent years, the average age of ordinands continues to get younger. More than half those ordained this year are between 25 and 34. One-third were born outside the United States. Ten percent are of Asian or Pacific Island ancestry - more than the comparable percentage of adult Asian/Pacific Catholics in the US. But only 14% are Hispanic - obviously less than the comparable percentage of adult Latino Catholics in the US.

What I found most interesting about the report, however, was what it suggests about the importance of lifelong involvement in the Church. Overwhelmingly (90%) those being ordained this year have been Catholics since childhood; 80% come from families where both parents were Catholic; 71% were altar servers; and one-third are related to a priest or religious. Among those who attended college or university before seminary, 67% attended a Catholic institution - compared with only 7% of the overall adult Catholic population. This seems to highlight the common-sense view that the longer and more deeply rooted one is in Catholic faith and life, the more likely a vocation is to develop. I've heard it said that good Catholic marriages resulting in strong Catholic families are ultimately the most effective vocation directors. These numbers certainly seem to confirm that!

There will always be priests who converted to Catholicism as adults - e.g., Blessed John Henry Newman and Servant of God Isaac Hecker - and those of Catholic background whose eventual vocation evolved more circuitously, at the completion of a lengthy spiritual search - e.g. St. Augustine. The Church has obviously been blessed by such vocations. But the majority of vocations will likely always come from those long and deeply rooted in the faith and actively engaged in the Church's life.

It has often been remarked that encouragement from a priest is also often a common factor. In fact, 66% of this year's priests-to-be report such encouragement from their parish priest. That says something, of course, about those priests' perception of their role in fostering vocations. But it also highlights the fact that those potential vocations must have been present (and visible) in parishes!

So the numbers - such as they are - seem to confirm what we more or less always knew - or should have known. Vocations develop in vibrant Catholic families and communities. Vibrant Catholic families and communities encourage and foster vocations. And forming and sustaining vibrant Catholic families and communities must be an essential focus for the Church's institutional energies.

The Storm

After such a gloriously festive Easter celebration, I treated myself to an unaccustomed day off on Easter Monday. After an afternoon at the movies (Of Gods and Men), I was enjoying a relaxing and convivial dinner at home with my associate pastor and our Paulist novice (now winding down his Lenten assignment at Blessed John XXIII University parish), when a powerful (albeit predicted) thunderstorm started. For a few minutes, it was the typical total downpour, an awesome display of weather which normally ends after a short time. Before it ended, however, all of a sudden the lights went out. Our novice came back into the dining room to tell us that a large tree had fallen completely - blocking the street and that it had taken down with it all the power lines. We all knew immediately that we were now looking not at some brief interruption in electricity but a night - and likely longer - of darkness.

My last previous blackout experience was the Assumption Eve New York Blackout of 2003. The thing about blackouts is that there is almost nothing normal that one can do. At this season, at the western end of the Eastern Time Zone, the sun doesn't set until about 8:30. So, once the storm was over, we were able to sit out on the porch. One could talk to the neighbors, and watch the strangers who came to our block to gawk at the tree trunk, and one could read. (Ironically, I had been originally expected to do some serious reading in my room that evening. In the end, I did briefly read - my Office - on the porch). Before long, however, it was too dark to read even outdoors and it was already too dark to do much of anything indoors. (I kept thinking of William Manchester's book about the Middle Ages, A World Lit Only By Fire).

Our lives really have become so almost completely dependent upon electricity - electric light, most especially, but not just light. There's the ubiquitous TV, which dominates most of the time we spend together - and often our time alone as well. Without TV, what is there to do?

In the 2003 NY Blackout, I was living in a much larger community and we all gathered on the 3rd floor for a steak diner, most of us sitting in the hallway. That was kind of fun, while it lasted. But then it was over, and there was nothing really that one could do but go to bed. After the initial excitement, blackouts are basically bad experiences. Food spoils and is wasted, for example. In the end, there is really little to do during a blackout but go to bed. That's not such a bad idea. We could all do with more sleep. Unfortunately, if you are supposed to sleep with a CPAP machine, then sleeping without electric power is problematic - and potentially dangerous. (That is why on this second night without power at home, I have taken a room in the hotel right next to the church).

Blackouts are a good reminder that, however we may at times romanticize the simple life, the fact is that most of us have long lost the capacity to cope with living as our ancestors did.

"Of Gods and Men"

It was a glorious Easter Sunday. After a wonderful Holy Week, we celebrated the resurrection on Sunday morning in a packed church with all the solemnity suitable to the occasion. The church was beautifully decorated - highlighted by the return of the original baptismal font to our semi-restored Baptistery. Nothing makes a church look more festive, however, than a capacity crowd. It's an amazing feeling one gets when one celebrates Mass in a full church - the way the church was intended to be and the way it likely was for so much of its past history. As for the Baptistery, once the restored gates are ready, then we will be ready to dedicate it and restore it to its original and proper purpose.

Home alone on Easter Sunday afternoon, watching the Pope's Urbi et Orbi on TV and reading the Sunday New York Times, I was feeling very grateful for such a fine first Easter in my new parish!

For Easter Monday, I decided to take an unaccustomed day off . Monday afternoon I went as planned to see the film Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois' intense film, based on the story of the Trappist monks of Tibhirine, Algeria, who were abducted from their monastery and murdered in 1996. I don't know how exactly the film follows the actual events leading up to the monks' martyrdom, but I presume its accuracy in its essential details. The fact that it is a true story, of course, adds enormously to its power. As the oft-used saying goes, You just can't make this stuff up.

The film focuses on the daily life of the 8 Trappist monks, whose monastery is in a village near the Atlas mountains. (Presumably, the village had grown up around the monastery - thus replicating in Muslim North africa a not-uncommon pattern in medieval Europe). In the first part of the film, before things begin to become scary, the monks are portrayed doing what monks do - praying night and day, reading and studying. In addition, they operate a medical clinic for the local population, and interact with the locals at the market and in other less scripted ways. Obviously, the movie wants to highlight the very good relations between the French monks and the local Algerian Muslim population - as a contrast, no doubt, to Islamist terrorism soon to be visited upon the country and its people (and the monks).

The good rapport between the monks and their Muslim neighbors is edifying, of course, especially for its naturalness. The monks and the villagers seem to coexist comfortably - naturally - in a somewhat symbiotic relationship, each group benefiting from their day-to-day interaction. It is refreshing to see ordinary Muslims portrayed with ordinary concerns (medicine for their children, celebrating a daughter's birthday, communicating with emigre relatives, etc.), enjoying genuine community with the Catholic monks in their midst. Likewise, it is refreshing to see the monks portrayed as so normal in so many ways - deeply religious men who nonetheless value normal human relationships and thrive accordingly.

The heart and soul of the monks' life, however, and what ultimately enriches all their external relationships and interactions is their prayer. The monks are portrayed at Night Office, at mass, etc. The images are touchingly affecting, the chants stirring, but above all again it is all so apparently un-self-conscious. The monks are not putting on a show - for themselves or anyone else. This is not liturgy as performance. Or liturgy as a stage for some other ministry. It is simply liturgy - the monastic life of prayer, permeating all aspects of day and night, including all the mundane "maintenance" activities that are the less glamorous side of religious life.

The portrayal of the monks' life prior to the onset of the crisis is essential. Once the crisis comes, it disrupts the ordinary pattern and challenges each monk to recommit himself to his vocation under more challenging circumstances. In the end, however, what the crisis calls each monk to do is to live out - albeit to a more heroic degree - the community life each of them has been living already, under more "normal" conditions.

The crisis comes when some Croatian workers are killed by a rebel group, and the assumption seems to be that sooner or alter they will target the foreign monks as well. If the movie has one weakness it is how incompletely it presents the context of the conflict. Exactly who the rebels are, why they are rebelling, etc., are not completely clear. It is implied that they are going after locals who seem less observant - or is it that they are somehow seen as corrupted by and/or collaborating with the foreigners? Also background to the monks' deteriorating relationship with the government is less than fully explained.

These are side issues, however. The central action during this crisis period is not the monks' difficult relations with government and military officials or even their even more frightening, first-hand experience of terrorist violence when the rebels attack the monastery for the first time (on Christmas Eve). These scenes produce some significant drama, but they are basically background for the soul-searching of each individual monk, played out in the process of the community's collective discernment of whether to flee or to remain. The Superior makes the initial decision not to accept government protection. In the end, the entire community will follow him in deciding to stay. At first, however, he seems somewhat high-handed and ideological and is rightly challenged by some of the other monks who express their fears and anxieties quite openly. It only adds to the edifying end that the monks are not seeking martyrdom, that they all recognize that there may be more then one option, and that some of them are so frightened that it seems they have to re-examine everything. And re-examine everything they do. The way the crisis forces them to articulate what their lives are all about - putting into words what they have already been living in their prayer and service - might make this movie a good vocational discernment film.

The first incursion of the terrorists came on Christmas and was followed by the celebration of Midnight Mass. The final attack comes on an unspecified date later on, but is preceded by a kind of "Last Supper." An air of anxiety and feeling of foreboding surrounds the supper - not unlike the original Last Supper - but there is also a sense of peace. The monks know who they are and what their lives have been about, and they are prepared to continue - even if that means being killed. Being killed isn't the point. Two monks manage to hide and escape capture and so survive. The point is not to get killed, but to stay - to be faithful to their vocation, come what may.

What a great way to observe Easter Monday!