Off the Cliff?

After months and more of doing what Congress does best – wait till the last minute to confront a crisis of its own creation – our dysfunctionally unproductive 112^th Congress has arrived at last at the so-called “Fiscal Cliff.”

As Jonathan Cohn observed in The New Republic last Friday: “when the deal materializes still matters less than what the deal entails.” He’s right, of course, but our crisis-oriented approach to reporting on politics remains focused mainly on the deadline and the drama fo the last-minute deal. And it is indeed part of the pathology of our present-day politics that, since settling things rationally is no longer a value and is likely instead to result in a primary challenge, no one ever expects a settlement until the deadline is imminent - or has passed. Now that we are at that point, it looks as if some modest deal is going to be struck. But again it is the quality of the deal more than the timing that we should be caring about.

Holy Family

One very popular, modern English Christmas tradition is the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols created in 1918 at King’s College, Cambridge. It begins with a single choirboy singing the 1^st verse of the 19^th century English hymn Once in David’s Royal City.  The choir and eventually the whole congregation soon join in the singing. One of the verses seems to have been tailor-made for today’s feast of the Holy Family:

And through all His wondrous childhood / He would honor and obey,

Love and watch the lowly Maiden, / In whose gentle arms He lay:

Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as He.

I can still remember attending Mass on this feast back when I was in elementary school more than 50 years ago (when this feast was still celebrated in the 2^nd week of January). It was, of course, the parish “Children’s Mass,” and the priest took advantage of the occasion to preach to us about our obligation to obey our parents. Fair enough, I suppose. But I can remember thinking to myself how the priest seemed to have based his whole sermon on one line near the end of the Gospel – He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them (Luke 2:51) - conveniently ignoring Jesus’ somewhat more independent behavior earlier in the story!  (As an altar boy at an adult Mass one of those years year, however, I heard another priest base his sermon on the significance of Mary and Joseph finally finding Jesus “in church”).

Today’s feast of the Holy Family is, obviously, about more than obedience to parents – or children going to church. Introduced by Pope Leo XIII 120 years ago, it reflects the modern Church’s concern, in the wake of both the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, to reaffirm the essential nature and fundamental importance of the family as a natural institution in society and as the unique human community through which society institutionalizes its commitment to the next generation. Addressing that concern is inevitably a critical component of the Church’s social mission. That said, the scriptures read at Mass today focus only tangentially on family life.

Like those Old Testament parents Hannah and Elkanah, about whom we hear in today’s 1^st reading (1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28), Mary and Joseph are portrayed as devoutly faithful to their religious obligations. Luke’s Gospel recounts an incident in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph travel to the Temple in Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus is now at an age when he will soon assume his adult responsibilities and obligations as a member of God’s Chosen People. He is, in effect, what we would today call an adolescent. Indeed, in purely human terms, Jesus’ behavior coudl be said to resemble that of a maturing adolescent, out to define his own personal identity. Of course, I doubt that many modern teenagers would choose to show their independence by hanging out in church for 3 days! I suspect it wasn’t too common then either.

On the other hand, the Gospel’s interest in this episode was obviously not to suggest some sort of teen rebellion or to explore issues of adolescent personal identity. What this really is, I think, is a kind of “vocation” story – Jesus’ first public acknowledgment of who he is and what his mission will be. Already anticipating his later behavior as an adult, Jesus here puts his priority on his relationship with his heavenly Father rather than his earthly family. Hence, his mission is to be in his Father’s house, rather than in the caravan among relatives and acquaintances. Likewise, the wonder experienced by the teachers in the Temple anticipates the wonder so many will eventually experience at Jesus’ teaching during his public life - and the wonder we continue to experience as we experience his continued life among us in his Church.

Like Hannah and Elkanah, Mary and Joseph had a son dedicated to the Lord, a son whose mission in life would take him – and his followers – beyond the limits of natural human relationships – reflected in the contrasting uses of the word “Father,” first in Mary’s question and then in Jesus’ surprising response. Through the Church, our new relationship with God in Jesus incorporates us into a new network of relationships both wider and more inclusive than any natural human relationships.

At the same time, we continue to be involved in and dependent upon those natural networks of human relationships, of which the family is the first. Yet, today’s feast calls our attention to the transforming effect of the Incarnation in all aspects of our daily life - intruding into and transforming everything else and all those day-to-day natural human relationships, including our families.

When he established this feast, Pope Leo XIII wrote: “When Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are invoked in the home, there they foster charity, there they exert a good influence over conduct, set an example of virtue, and make more bearable the hardships of every life.” (Neminem fugit, 1892)

Becket

Exactly 20 years ago today, on my first-ever trip to England, my friend Steve and I took the train from London to Canterbury, where we visited the historic cathedral and attended Solemn Evensong, celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, at the end of which we were all led down to the exact spot where St. Thomas Becket was martyred on this date in 1170.
 

It's obvious that my main intellectual interests (i.e,. the things I read serious books about) are religion, politics, and history. One of this year's books that wonderfully combined the three was Cambridge Fellow John Guy's Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel: A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Story Retold (RandomHouse, 2012). As his chosen subtitle suggests, Guy retells the familiar story of the ambitious and talented, middle-class Londoner (later titled Lux Londoniarum, "The Light of Londoners"), who improbably rose to be Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, only eventually to fall out with his powerfully ambitious King - Henry II, who reigned as King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou from 1154 to 1189. As the king's patronage had elevated Becket beyond what would have been warranted by his modest background, the king's enmity (and some would say Becket's uncompromising stance) drove him into exile for some six years. The two were formally reconciled in France in 1170, and Becket returned to England and Canterbury Cathedral in December of that year. But the reconciliation was superficial. John Guy recounts how in October on the occasion of one of their final meetings, "when it looked as if [Becket] might accompany the king to mass in the royal chapel, the order of service was hastily changed fromt he liturgy for the day to the liturgy for the dead, in which the prayer for peace is omitted and no kiss exchanged." Becket was back home less than a month before his dramatic murder in the cathedral. His dying words were: "For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death." Devotion to him as a martyr developed immediately. (According to The Golden Legend, when the clergy were about to intone the Requiem aeternam, choirs of angels interrupted them and began to chant the Mass for a Martyr!) Thomas was quickly canonized on Ash Wednesday 1173. On July 12, 1174, the prudently politic Henry submitted to public penance at the martyr's tomb. 

While Henry II succeeded only in part and so dramatically and conspicuously failed in part, timing and circumstances were more favorable to his Tudor namesake Henry VIII, who would in due course systematically end the independence and freedom of the Church in England. In the process of his reducing the English Church to a department of the State, Henry VIII had what he hoped was the final word on Becket: "notwithstanding the said canonization, there appeareth nothing in his life and exterior conversation whereby he should be called a saint, but rather esteemed to have been a rebel and a traitor to his prince."

Becket's story was played out in a medieval world in which religion was omnipresent and a factor to be reckoned with. Modern western societies may think themselves immune from such pressures - and so that much more free when it comes to exercising complete control over their citizenry. The competition for people's ultimate allegiance will continue, and in every age will require its own Beckets ready to embrace martyrdom "for the name of Jesus and the protection of the church." 

Holy Innocents

Today's feast of the Holy Innocents, on this "Fourth Day of Christmas," is known to have been celebrated in this Christmas week since at least 485 A.D., along with the feasts of St. Stephen, the 1st Martyr, and St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist, on December 26 and 27 respectively.   It has been suggested (cf. The Catholic Encyclopedia) that these three days commemorate Stephen (as a martyr by will, by love, and by blood), John, (as a "martyr" only by will and by love), and the Infants of Bethelehem murdered by King Herod (as martyrs by blood only). As an explanation for the celebration of these three within the week of Christmas, that is certainly an edifying, if also a somewhat imaginative one!
 

At "saints' school," great emphasis was put on the proper requirements for martyrdom.- the "material" element of actual death and the "formal" element of motive, both the motive of the persecutor and the motive of the persecuted. Our textbook insisted on l'accettazione volontaria della morte per amore della fede (the voluntary acceptance of death for love of the faith). Now whatever else we may want to say about the Hoy Innocents, that criterion clearly could not have been fulfilled by them. So what then is the significance of their death and their veneration by the Church as martyrs?
 

In ancient and medieval times, in both eastern and western Churches, a seemingly astronomical number of Holy Innocents was postulated (even as many as 144,000 - to harmonize with Revelation 14:3). In reality, of course, Bethlehem was a tiny little town. In all likelihood, there might have been perhaps a dozen victims - probably even fewer. Hence the lack of any reference to this event in any secular source. Herod's atrocities were many and so well known that this particular crime could well have seemed small and would hardly have attracted much notice outside of Bethlehem itself. (The supposition that the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the walls - the stational church for this feast - contains the actual relics of the Holy Innocents might likewise seem somewhat less than certain).
 

Until 1960, in the Roman Rite the liturgical color for today's feast was purple - not martyrs' red - and both the Gloria and the Alleluia were omitted (except when the feast fell on a Sunday). While the use of penitential purple was much more common then than it is now, its use on one of the 12 Days of Christmas certainly stood out and suggests that, while the title of martyr may have been bestowed upon them by the Church, the Holy Innocents are in a category all their own. This feast, it seems to me, speaks to us less about martyrdom as such, than about the world's rejection of Christ (which in turn, of course, creates the basis for all authentic martyrdom).
 

Certainly the story as told by Matthew is only incidentally about Herod's homicidal personality and primarily about his rejection of Christ. What captures it for me is the curious line in the Gospel, when herod hears about the Magi's arrival in Jerusalem: When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled (Matthew 2:3). What the Magi (and elsewhere the shepherds) had greeted with joy, Herod found troubling. And not just Herod! The account continues: and all Jerusalem with him. In Herod's case, of course, we know he was worried - in his case a worry bordering on paranoia - about threats to his power. This was a misplaced fear, a clear case of missing the point. “To save his kingdom Herod resolves to kill [Jesus], though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come” (St. Quodvultdeus).

Yet Jesus was a threat to the worldview of Herod and others like him. The world's rejection of Jesus is irrational in the sense St. Quodvultdeus intended, but it may seem rational in the sense that the good news of the gospel may translate as bad news if one's will and heart are totally given over to the world's agenda of power, domination, and control. It was the human tragedy fo the Holy Innocents to be caught up among history's many victims of thew world's insatiable lust for power, dominaiton, and control. It was their unique privilege to suffer as unwitting witnesses to the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us as the definitive alternative to that.

Day 2

In most other Christian countries (even if lamentably now mostly post-Christian), this "Second Day of Christmas" is still a holiday - whether referred to by its liturgical title (St. Stpehen's Day) or, as it is called throughout the British Commonwealth, "Boxing Day." Here in the U.S., of course, it just an ordinary workday - and a big day for shoppers to return or exchange unwanted Christmas presents and get started on the post-Christmas sales.

It is usually suggested that the placement of so many prominent saints' days within the Octave of Christmas is evidence of the late development of the Christmas Octave. Let the liturgical historians argue about such matters! In any event, the juxtaposition of St. Stephen, the 1st Martyr, with the Nativity seems especially compelling. (If we also add in the Holy Innocents on December 28 and St. Thomas Becket on December 29, martyrs seem to figure quite prominently indeed in this Christmas Octave. Such "coincidences" are hardly insignificant).
Notwithstanding St. Stephen's importance, in our time this "Second Day of Christmas" is mainly, I think, for most of us just a "day after." I remember my father saying how he always preferred it when Christmas was aSaturday or a Sunday, which meant December 26 was a day off. Since school was closed and I had the day off anyway, I didn't care much about that, although now I can appreciate his thinking much more. (My own particular preference has always been for Christmas on a Monday, because it means the shortest possible Advent).
The dynamic of our modern American Christmas calls for a long (and getting ever longer), renzied "holiday season" building up to the big day, then a sudden let-down on or immediately after December 25. When I used to visit my family on the West Coast for new Year's, I used to find it sad how the public Christmas decorations (still in place when I would arrive soon after Christmas) would mostly all be gone by New Year's. And even in New York one would start seeing discarded Christmas Trees by the curb sometimes as ealry as December 26. As a culture, I think we find it a challenge to keep things going. That seems to be true about a lot of things. Our contemproary newsmedia tends to fixate on one issue or event for a while, as if nothing else were going on in the world, but then at some point it becomes old news and might as well be ancient history. The pre-Christmas frenzy and the immediatley post-Christ let-down seem to fit that pattern.
There is not much to be bone about that, of course, but those of us whose responsibility it is to keep celebrating Christmas until after Epiphany just have to keep doing what we're supposed to do. For the few who come, the festive Masses each day of the Christmas Octave and the daily repetition of the Gloria and of the special insertions in Roman Canon convey the sense of religious fesitivity continuing in spite of the surrounding secular let-down.