Paul (the Movie)

Easter is the season for reading the Acts of the Apostles. So it seems an especially appropriate time to see the new film Paul Apostle of Christ, a dramatized version of Luke writing the Acts of the Apostles through a series of conversations with Paul, while the apostle was in Rome's Mamertine prison, awaiting his execution, in the aftermath of Nero's fire and the Roman persecution of Christians that followed. Although Paul quotes himself (i.e., his epistles) throughout, the film is as much about Luke and the Roman Christian community (led by Priscilla and Aquila) as it is about Paul himself. It is also about the Romans - as seen through the military commander of the prison, whose daughter Luke heals, not by a miracle but by his skills as a physician and the charitable cooperation of the Roman Christians. 

Although the film ends on a triumphant note with Paul's martyrdom (having fought the good fight, etc.) and with Priscilla and Aquila and the remnant of the Christian community successfully fleeing from Rome, the overall atmosphere is one of great fear in the face of the terror of Roman imperial persecution. The movie makes clear that being a Christian put one in conflict with the powers of the world and worldly culture. Modern Christianity, in contrast, struggles and is internally conflicted over how much to accommodate to secular society and its values, how much to give in to the world - whether the issue is sexuality or trying to reconcile being Christian with being part of a profit-making, commercial, capitalist economy. The film highlights the tension between an apocalyptic sect of martyrs and a Church for ordinary people, families, and nations, very much at home and settled in the world. (That tension is overtly treated in the conflict caused when some dissenting members of the Roman Christian community can't quite cope with the pain and stress of seemingly permanent persecution any more and so decide to take up arms to save Rome - and themselves - from Nero.)

So why would anyone in Rome join such a group? The film does illustrate the distinctive character of Christianity in contrast with paganism, how it created a loving community of brothers and sisters committed to caring for one another - and even beyond the sectarian boundaries that separated them from the rest of Roman society. While the movie shows how challenging and demanding and dangerous it was to be a Christian, it also highlights their love for one another and the powerful witness of that love to the wider pagan world.

The final scene seems to imagine Paul's reunion in heaven with Stephen (and the others he persecuted in his pre-Christian period) - a sort of on-screen portrayal of the famous sermon of Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe (460-533): Now at last Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen he exults, with Stephen he reigns. Stephen went first, slain by the stones thrown by Paul, but Paul followed after, helped by the prayer of Stephen. This, surely, is the true life, my brothers, a life in which Paul feels no shame because of Stephen's death, and Stephen delights in Paul's companionship, for live fills them both with joy,

April

The ancient Romans gave to this month the Latin name Aprilis, traditionally thought to be derived from the verb aperire ("to open"), a supposed reference to the spring season's budding of flowers and trees. April was the second month of the original Roman calendar. After January and February were added by King Numa Pompilius, April became the fourth month. The 30th day was added by Julius Caesar. The Roman Robigalia was celebrated on April 25, which survived in Christianized form as the “Greater Litanies,” until suppressed by Pope Paul VI in 1969. In the Christian calendar, April is also when Easter most frequently occurs. In 2018, Easter was celebrated yesterday on April 1 by Western Latin Christians and will be observed next week later on April 8 by Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The dating of Easter, once a source of such intense conflict in the early Church (and still a point of contention between Western and Eastern Christians), now remains as a quiet protest against the tyranny of the secular, commercial calendar, which, thankfully, the Church so stubbornly ignores when it comes to celebrating its greatest festival.

In the secular world, April is also National Poetry Month. I hardly ever read any poetry anymore, but I appreciate having had to memorize so many poems in my schooldays. (I can still recite some of them.)  It was a good educational experience to have to hear and recite poetry, as well as just read it. If nothing else, it teaches one to appreciate the sound of words as well as their sense!

And, speaking of poetry, we have, of course, the modern poet T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), who began The Wasteland (1922) with these famous words about April:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

(Photo: April from the famous Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, an early 15th-century prayer book, which is widely considered perhaps the best surviving example of medieval French Gothic manuscript illumination)

This Is the Day

It happened early in the morning on the first day of the week.

Every morning is, in a sense, a new beginning, a chance to start over. Even so, in the normal course of events, the Sabbath day of rest would have been followed on the first day of the week by business as usual – both for the living, returning to their regular daily work, and for the dead, decaying in their graves, who (then as now) were expected to stay dead. Those who went to visit Jesus’ tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week presumably shared those same general expectations. The Gospel we just heard simply says that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning. The other Gospel writers tell us that Mary was accompanied other women, and that their purpose in visiting the tomb was to anoint Jesus’ body. However many they were and whatever they expected to do, it seems safe to suggest that their expectations that morning were well within the range of the normal.

Instead, however, they found something surprising and unexpected. Mark’s Gospel, which we heard last night at the Vigil Mass, tells us about their surprising experience at the tomb and how they were told to tell Peter and the other disciples about it, which this morning’s Gospel informs us that they did. For this morning, this 1st day of the week, this Super-Sunday, the world awakens not to business as usual, but to something totally new – to, of all the things that God has ever done, the greatest of them all. And so we say today: This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!

Jesus’ resurrection was a historical event of the most monumental importance – more important even than the latest presidential tweet or the latest person to leave his or her White House job – the most important event in all of human history. And yet, however hard it may be for us to imagine (in this age of omnipresent media and the 24-hour news cycle), the resurrection was hardly even noticed at first.

Really important things are remembered for their long-term impact, not for the short-term noise they make. Maybe that is why none of the gospels give us an actual description of the event itself. Artists have tried to picture it, of course, but that’s art - highly imaginative art at that. We have nothing either visual or verbal that depicts the actual event of Jesus’ resurrection. What we do have, however, both visually and verbally, are the resurrection’s effects – first of all on the disciples, and then on the world, and finally on us.

The resurrection’s effects on the disciples are what we read and hear in the gospel stories of the visits to an empty tomb and then later of the appearances of the risen Lord – and still later in the preaching of Saint Peter and others in the Acts of the Apostles and in the amazing response of those who heard their preaching, and finally in the testimony and letters of Saint Paul, who wasn’t there at all at Easter, but who eventually experienced the risen Lord himself and was forever changed as a result.

Its effects on the world were soon evident in the enthusiastic response of Jews and pagans alike to the amazing story the apostles told. In the long term, its effects have been equally dramatic in how the story has spread and the Church has grown as a result, in the dynamism that is at the heart of the Church’s existence in the world and that has propelled it outward in almost 2000 years of world-transforming activity.

Finally, its effects are evident in us, transformed in mind and changed in heart, by the unique power of this utterly unexpected event, which has glorified (almost beyond recognition) the humanity Jesus shares with each of us, and which has brought us together in a way in which nothing else could have, empowering us not so much with new knowledge as with a new hope. 

It is the resurrection’s long-term effects which we actually experience and which bring us here today – as Jesus’ body that lived and died and still forever bears the marks of his passion emerges from the tomb to transform our world, starting right here, right now, with us.

Even so, as we just heard, the first few to be made aware of this momentous news left the empty tomb more confused than elated: For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Nor would we, if that were all we had of the story.

In a world which seems so permanently stuck in the dark, pre-dawn position, where death always seems to have the final say, the disciples needed to experience the kind of change that could only come from the Risen Lord’s living presence among them. And so do we, which is why we are here, where the Risen Lord brings us together as no one else can.

So, instead of the 1st day of the week condemning the world back to business as usual, this 1st day after the Sabbath is starting something new – not just a new week, but a new world, where death no longer has the final say. The resurrection is God’s powerful alternative to business as usual.  None of us were there that first Easter Sunday – and, had we been, we would surely have been as amazed and uncomprehending as the disciples themselves. But without yet understanding it, the world awoke on Easter to something totally new. We are here today, because God did not stop on the 7th day, because there is now a new day, on which God has, so to speak, re-created the world in his Son, Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and buried, but now risen from the dead. That new day is today – and every day from now on, until we too will appear with him in glory [Colossians 3:4].

That is why we have to come back, Sunday after Sunday, to be filled in on what happened next and thus experience the effects of the resurrection ourselves. Like the disciples in the Gospel, some of us run fast. Others, beset perhaps by doubts or daily difficulties, run much more slowly. What matters most, however, is where we finally end up. So whether we are runners or walkers, we must accompany the disciples to the tomb, which in a business-as-usual world would have remained dark, but from which the stone has been removed – so we can see and believe.

Easter invites us put ourselves in the position of the disciples – and allow ourselves to experience something wonderfully and completely new in a world which seems so ordinary and old. Easter invites us to start living in the present that new and different future to which the Risen Lord is leading us.

Easter Sunday Homily, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, April 1, 2018.

This Is the Night

This is the night, when once you led our forefathers, Israel’s children from slavery in Egypt and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.

So sang our deacon a short while ago, beginning our Vigil with the stirring words of the ancient Easter Proclamation, commonly called the Exsultet (its opening word in the original Latin). 

America’s most famous, 20th-century monk, Thomas Merton, once called the Exsultet "the key to the whole business.” When it was his turn to sing it, he wrote, “I am going to sing the whole of theology. It is marvelous. … And the people who hear it are learning all theology, and the Holy Ghost, Who operates what is signified, throws light in darkness upon the whole meaning of Christianity.” [April 6, 1947, & April 15, 1949]

Merton wasn’t alone in his praise. The great 20th-century liturgical scholar Pius Parsch once called the Exsultet "a hymn that never ceases to touch the heart and mind." But now just how does it do that? It does so, I believe, by bringing us back to the very heart of the ancient Passover story, which we recall tonight with this Vigil, just as the Jewish People have for so many centuries celebrated the Passover night’s annual return each spring. In the Book of Exodus we are told: This was a night of vigil for the Lord, as he led them out of the land of Egypt; so on this same night all the Israelites must keep a vigil for the Lord throughout their generations. This they have done, generation after generation, in both good times and bad; and so also must we on this our own annual Christian Passover night.

On this night, when once God led Israel from slavery and brought them safely through the waters of the Red Sea, we too follow our own pillar of fire, our Easter candle marked with 5 grains of incense to signify the holy and glorious wounds of Christ’s passion, to relive that night when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.

Throughout the entire Easter season, this Easter Candle, the symbol of the Risen Christ and visible reminder of his great victory, will stand in its place of honor in the sanctuary.

Also prominently displayed in our church throughout this Easter season is the icon of the Resurrection. This famous image portrays the Risen Christ standing over the broken gates of hell, lifting up Adam and Eve from their coffins – while, on one side, Moses, Isaiah and Elijah, and, on the other, the Old Testament kings and John the Baptist look on. 

In the centuries-old Passover ritual, it is said that “in every generation” every person should view him or herself as having personally come out of Egypt. Passover isn’t just some historical anniversary. It is something that happens in the lives of God’s People here and now. And so it is for us on this Passover feast of the Church. For, as the Exsultet says, this is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.

Tonight, having heard again the ancient Passover story - its full meaning now unlocked for us by Jesus’ triumph over death - the Church simply cannot contain her joy. Sadly silent these past two days, the bells now ring again with all the clamor they can muster. As far back as I can remember, the ringing of the bells has been my favorite moment of the Easter Vigil – a moment of sheer joy to be remembered throughout the year, and beyond. And no wonder! For what bigger news has there ever been? What better news has there ever been?

But before we got to ring the bells, we began this Vigil following the way led by that single candle - the symbol and expression of our community’s prayer, a community created by that candle’s glowing fired ignited for the honor of God. Now a candle, of course, is just a candle. The night is still dark, despite all our efforts to the contrary. Life is like that. Hence, the deacon’s prayer on our behalf: Therefore, O Lord, we pray you that this candle, hallowed to the honor of your name, may persevere undimmed, to overcome the darkness of this night.

Just as God once led his Chosen People through the threatening sea and the frightening desert by the light of a pillar of fire, so he continues today to lead his Church through the dangerous darkness of our world by the amazing brightness of the Risen Christ.

In centuries past, the faithful of Rome assembled at nightfall at tonight’s Stational Church, the Basilica of St. John in the Lateran, the Mother Church of both the City and the world, for an all-night vigil, while out of sight, next-door in the Baptistery, the newest members of the Church, solemnly renouncing Satan and all his works and all his empty show, passed through the saving waters of baptism - an experience meant to be every bit as transformative for them as passing through the Red Sea was for the Israelites. The Exsultet expresses how they undoubtedly would have experienced their emergence from that Baptistery in the dawning light of Easter morning: The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness.

And so again it must be for all of us, for whom this night is not an end but a beginning. Ritually this night is our entry to tomorrow’s solemn celebration of Easter Sunday - the Solemnity of Solemnities, as Augustine famously called it. More than that, it is our entry to an Easter life. Thanks to the fact that Christ has risen from the dead, the Christian faith offers an alternative to business as usual, offering instead an invitation to hope. It is the power of that faith and hope that has brought us, whether here and now or a long time ago, to the water of baptism, and that brings us back Sunday after Sunday to hear the rest of the story, to experience the presence of the risen Christ in the gift of his Holy Spirit and in the breaking of the bread, and to experience the presence of the risen Christ in the new people he is transforming us into and the amazingly wonderful things that we can now do with one another and for the world as a result.

As at the Passover, so on this most holy Easter night, we each of us experience coming out of Egypt. We each of us experience Christ breaking the prison-bars of death and rising victorious from the underworld. And, as his Church on this most holy Easter night, together we will each of us solemnly renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty show. Then, indeed, this night shall be as bright as day, dazzling and full of gladness.

Easter Vigil Homily, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 31, 2018.

The Passover of the Lord

It is Good Friday evening. All over the world, from the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica to the smallest rural mission church, solemn ceremonies are bringing to a close this 1st of 3 days (beginning at sunset yesterday and ending at sunset on Sunday) when, united with Christians of every time and place, we contemplate Christ crucified, buried, and risen. It is the Passover of the Lord.

The Passover of the Lord! The whole story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection is intimately wrapped up with the story of the Passover, which, by happy coincidence this year, begins tonight – just as it did then. Jesus died (as we just heard) on the afternoon before the Passover, even as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple, and was hastily buried because the festival was about to begin. His accusers would not enter Pilate’s headquarters in order not to be defiled so that they could eat the Passover.

Passover celebrates the most important event in Israel’s history – not just as something interesting that happened, once upon a time, a long time ago, but as something powerfully real and meaningful in the present, and a sign of hope for the future. In the words of the Passover ritual: In every generation let all look on themselves as having personally come forth from Egypt. … It was not only our ancestors, blessed be He, that the Holy One redeemed, but us as well did he redeem along with them. … In every generation they stand up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand.

Being saved! That’s what this is all about! To prepare us, we heard last night how, at the exodus, the blood of the lamb marked the doors of the houses of God’s People. Later in history, the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the altar of the Temple. Now, in Jesus, the great high priest who has passed through the heavens, the blood of the lamb has been shed, once and for all, on the altar of the cross – our doorway to salvation. Marked by the blood that saves us all, the cross has thus become the Church’s door.  A dreaded instrument of disgraceful death, the cross is now, thanks to this day, our gateway to freedom and new life, a triumphant sign of glory.

Of course, in our postmodern popular culture (so like Pontius Pilate in the caustic skepticism that simply dismisses the disconcerting possibility of something so serious and restricting as truth), the cross must seem a nonsensical failure. But the paradoxical power of the cross is that Christ’s true triumph lay precisely in his not dramatically descending from the cross (like some silly celebrity), but in ascending the cross as a condemned criminal – a paradox succinctly summarized by the prophet Isaiah: he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people … But … the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him … and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.

It was this mysterious and strangely paradoxical text that an ancient Ethiopian court official was reading, when he met the evangelist Philip in chapter 8 of the Acts of the Apostles. I beg you, he asked, about whom is the prophet saying this? Philip, we are told, opened his mouth and, beginning with this scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to him. With Philip, the unanimous witness of Christian tradition has recognized - in Jesus crucified, buried, and risen - the one who perfectly fulfills the prophet’s paradoxical words.

As the thrust of the soldier’s lance into Jesus’ side certified, Jesus really died on the cross. Then, bound with burial cloths according to the custom, his body was buried – all of which should then have been the end of the story.

And yet this is not some sort of funeral service. We are not here today to mourn. If Jesus had in fact remained dead, if his body had indeed decayed in the tomb, then none of us would be here today at all. Nor are we acting in a play, pretending he’s dead until we see what (if anything) happens on Sunday. We are here, rather, because he really did die, but really isn’t dead anymore. And that is why we celebrate the cross of Christ.

As St. John Chrysostom expressed it, some 16 centuries ago:

Before, the cross was synonymous with condemnation; now it is an object of honor. Before, a symbol of death; now the means of salvation. It has been the source of countless blessings for us: it has delivered us from error, it has shone on us when we were in darkness. We were vanquished, yet it reconciles us with God. We were foes, yet it has regained God’s friendship for us. We were estranged, yet it has brought us back to him.

In a short while, we will solemnly salute the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world. In every generation, each one must personally look upon the cross of Christ and embrace it for oneself. That is what we acknowledge when we come forward to venerate the cross. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find help in our time of need.

We will venerate the cross, approaching it individually (imitating Mary, his mother standing by the cross) - for each one of us is challenged as a disciple to realign his or her life, to model one’s life on the mystery of Christ’s cross - despite the difficulties life puts in the way, despite the obstacles each individual sinner personally puts in the way. We will venerate the cross, approaching it together as the community of Christ’s holy Catholic Church - born on the cross in the blood and water which flowed out from Jesus’ side as a sign of the Church’s sacramental life and mission - because it is together as Christ’s Church (united with Mary, the Mother of the Church) that we continue Christ’s life and mission, effectively extending the reach of his cross into the whole world. That is why, momentarily, following one of the most ancient Church traditions of this day, we will pray for that whole world – for the Church, for its leaders, for those joining the Church, for those outside, for the Jews, for unbelievers, for our political leaders, and for all in any kind of need – for  the whole world without exception.

Passing through life this way, standing by the cross of Jesus and reborn as his Church in his blood and water, we will ourselves become Passover doorways, through which the Easter promise of salvation will flow, in a torrent, from his side to fill our entire world.

Homily for Good Friday, Liturgy of the Lord's Passion, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 30, 2018.

Photo: The 13.5 ft. Belgian granite and bronze corpus, 1897 "Hewit Crucifix," Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, NY, used in some years for the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday.