Ever this day, Be at my Side

I think I was in 5th grade when Sister tried to teach us about the particular Judgment using the analogy of a criminal trial, in which God will be the judge, each of us the defendant, the Devil the prosecutor, and one's Guardian Angel the witness. What really struck me about that analogy at the time was that there was no Defense Attorney!

I get the point, of course, why there will be no Defense Attorney on judgment day. Still it seems natural to want one, and the closest to obvious candidate would be one's Guardian Angel. After all, we were all taught as children to pray to our Guardian Angel: Ever this day, Be at my side, to light and guard, To rule and guide.

Of course, such angelic protection is obviously designed for "this day," i.e., for the present, for this transitory life. And in this challengingly transitory life, the idea of angelic guardians is certainly reassuring.

Today's feast of the Guardian Angels is a relative latecomer to the calendar. It apparently appeared first in Spain in the 16th century from where it spread to the wider Church. In 1608 Pope Paul V allowed it as an optional feast on the first ferial day following the feast of Saint Michael, until finally in 1670 it was inscribed in the universal calendar for this date.

The Church's belief in the assistance of our Guardian Angels is, of course, considerably older. In the Gospel, Jesus famously instructs his disciples not to despise these little ones, whose angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father (Matthew 18:10), and in his Commentary on Matthew, Saint Jerome suggested that each soul has such an angel to guard it, a view reaffirmed by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa.

Today's liturgy refers to the Guardian Angels in the context of God's unfathomable providence, which is perhaps the best way to think of - and be grateful for - it.

(Photo: the Angel at the top of the Baldacchino at the Paulist "Mother Church" of Saint Paul the Apostle, NY)

A Phone on the Sidewalk

I briefly lost my iphone one day last week. We had been having lunch at a local diner after a community meeting, and on the way home I realized that the phone case attached to my belt was empty. Thinking I must have left it at home before going to eat, I searched all the obvious places  - to no avail. Finally I drove back to the diner, praying to Saint Anthony all the way, knowing I had not used it there but thinking I might have inadvertently put it on the table for some reason. When I got there, as I approached the door, there it was - lying on its side on the sidewalk in front of the door! In an earlier era I would at least have intoned a Te Deum and maybe rung a bell in gratitude! As for why Saint Anthony should be expected to find lost objects I don't know, but if he interceded on my behalf, I was certainly grateful for his merciful compassion!

Of course, a lost phone can be replaced. But in that terrifying interlude when I thought I had lost it for ever, all I could think of was all the information - contacts, my calendar, photos, etc. - that would have been irretrievably lost. not to mention all the time and energy I would have to expend to try to reassemble whatever information I could. It was, indeed, nothing short of terrifying - every bit as bad as the time I thought I had lost my wallet with its precious cargo of identification, credit cards, insurance cards, etc.!  It is certainly a reminder - both salutary and scary - of how dependent one is on such modern things!

Like most modern technologies, the smartphone is neither an unmixed blessing nor an unmitigated evil. I can well remember a time when one could easily find oneself alone - stranded or sick or injured - and unable to seek assistance. That the invention of the cellphone has served to make many aspects of life easier and, indeed, safer, there can be no doubt. And the convenience of being able to communicate - or at least leave messages, be they vice mail, text, or email - is, well, convenient!

That said, the damage done to human society and genuine social interaction by the phone cannot be understated. 

The late 1960s movie, The President's Analyst imagined a plot by the phone company to inject miniature telephones into everyone's bloodstream. Have we in the interim inadvertently done to ourselves something analogously mischievous?

Around 1970 or so, I had a friend who was strongly opposed to the telephone. She acknowledged the safety factor and advocated that everyone be connected in some way to enable emergency calls, but opposed owning a phone for any further purpose. I thought here position extreme at the time - as extreme as the cultural snobs who refused to have a television in their homes. But, as is so often the case with extreme cultural positions, it was rooted in a recognition of a real problem.

Along with phone calls, I rely on my iphone for emails and texts and even for praying my daily Divine Office. That said, making some sort of provision for the safety caveats even my long ago anti-phone friend allowed for, apart of me still wonders whether we all wouldn't be better off at soem basic level of reality, if the modern cell phone had never been invented, had never invaded our lives, had never conquered our culture!

Meanwhile, however, in this world of woe where dependence on one's phone is inevitable, I am glad i found it on the sidewalk. Thank you, Saint Anthony!

Aperuit Illis

At the Lateran Basilica today, Pope Francis observed the beginning of the 1600th anniversary year of the death of Saint Jerome (347-420), the ascetic Scripture scholar who translated the Bible into the Latin Vulgate and is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. To mark the occasion the Pope issued a Motu Proprio Aperuit Illis, which takes its name from the Gospel quote with which it begins, "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45).The immediate practical object of this Motu Proprio is the dedication of the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time as The Sunday of the Word of God.

The Pope's purpose in this is to highlight the centrality of the Sacred Scriptures to our Christian identity - specifically the three-fold relationship among "the Risen Lord, the community of believers and sacred scripture." This observance will also "be a fitting part of that time of the year when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to pray for Christian unity." The Pope proposes that on that Sunday the proclamation of the word be highlighted and the honor due to it be emphasized in the homily - and "that in the Eucharistic celebration the sacred text be enthroned, in order to focus the attention of the assembly on the normative value of God's word." 

Exactly what form all this will take in local liturgical practice means to be seen. The calendar is already marked with special days devoted this or that theme that often hardly get noticed - sometimes because not adequately publicized, sometimes because of other already established local themes or special collections or other special activities assigned to that day. Yesterday., for example, was the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. How many people had even heard of it? Of all such special Sundays, the recent renaming of the Sunday after Easter as "Divine Mercy Sunday" may well have been the most successful such effort - probably because it built upon an already existing (albeit modern and far from universal) popular devotion.

That said, this newest papal initiative seems especially timely. The Bible, the Pope points out "belongs above all to those called to hear its message and to recognize themselves in its words." It "is the book of the Lord's people, who, in listening to it, move from dispersion and division towards unity." What could be more timely than that?

World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Tomorrow is the annual World Day of Migrants and Refugees. 

In his Message for this World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis has warned: 

The most economically advanced societies are witnessing a growing trend towards extreme individualism which, combined with a utilitarian mentality and reinforced by the media, is producing a “globalization of indifference”. In this scenario, migrants, refugees, displaced persons and victims of trafficking have become emblems of exclusion. In addition to the hardships that their condition entails, they are often looked down upon and considered the source of all society’s ills. That attitude is an alarm bell warning of the moral decline we will face if we continue to give ground to the throw-away culture. In fact, if it continues, anyone who does not fall within the accepted norms of physical, mental and social well-being is at risk of marginalization and exclusion. 

For this reason, the presence of migrants and refugees – and of vulnerable people in general – is an invitation to recover some of those essential dimensions of our Christian existence and our humanity that risk being overlooked in a prosperous society. That is why it is not just about migrants. When we show concern for them, we also show concern for ourselves, for everyone; in taking care of them, we all grow; in listening to them, we also give voice to a part of ourselves that we may keep hidden because it is not well regarded nowadays. ...

Dear brothers and sisters, our response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration can be summed up in four verbs: welcome, protect, promote and integrate. Yet these verbs do not apply only to migrants and refugees. They describe the Church’s mission to all those living in the existential peripheries, who need to be welcomed, protected, promoted and integrated. If we put those four verbs into practice, we will help build the city of God and man. We will promote the integral human development of all people. We will also help the world community to come closer to the goals of sustainable development that it has set for itself and that, lacking such an approach, will prove difficult to achieve.

In a word, it is not only the cause of migrants that is at stake; it is not just about them, but about all of us, and about the present and future of the human family. Migrants, especially those who are most vulnerable, help us to read the “signs of the times”. Through them, the Lord is calling us to conversion, to be set free from exclusivity, indifference and the throw-away culture. Through them, the Lord invites us to embrace fully our Christian life and to contribute, each according to his or her proper vocation, to the building up of a world that is more and more in accord with God’s plan.

The Impeachment Circus

Predicating serious strategy when it comes to President Trump's behavior is, of course, problematic. But, strategically planned or not, the President does seem to have maneuvered the Democrats into a position more likely to ensure his reelection next year. I refer, of course, to the ever increasing eagerness of many Democrats to hop on the impeachment train, despite the obvious evidence that it will most likely help the President's cause and hurt the Democrats' cause. Then again the American Left has always seemed more comfortable with expressive political gestures than with actual political action and accomplishment.

Let us start with the obvious fact that impeachment (presuming its goal is actual removal from office) is by its nature a move by the political class to overturn the results of an election. In an ostensibly representative government, that is inherently problematic and is best attempted only when the elected official's offenses are super serious and represent either a deviation from what the electorate voted for or a genuine change in the electorate's attitude toward the official. It can easily be argued that the President's actions have long been sufficiently serious on their merits to warrant impeachment. There is much less evidence, however, that they represent any deviation from the President his supporters thought they were voting for or that his supporters' evaluation of him has markedly changed. The last attempted impeachment is - or ought to be - a lesson in how and why a partisan impeachment lacking in democratic legitimacy is likely to backfire.

Putting aside this fundamental issue of democratic legitimacy, as impeachment's advocates seem so eagerly prepared to do, there remains the strategic argument. This President seems acutely aware of the political benefits of extreme conflict. It is possible that he personally prefers it. As Ross Douthat wrote in yesterday's NY Times,  "the circus is the part of politics that he [Trump] fundamentally enjoys."  Personal enjoyment aside, being persecuted by his elite, establishment enemies (and fighting back) is precisely what may be most endearing about Trump to his "base" supporters, many of whom also feel looked down upon by the same elite establishment and see his fights with them as in some strange way vicarious fights on their behalf.

Besides energizing his "base," impeachment would totally dominate our conflict-oriented news media, pushing aside not only anything positive Democrats may be doing in Congress but also anything positive the 2020 Democratic candidates may be offering the American people. Again, I think Douthat gets it right: "if Democrats impeach him they will be doing something unpopular instead of something popular. ...The Democratic agenda is more popular than the Republican agenda (whatever that is), the likely Democratic nominees are all more popular than Trump, and so anything that puts the Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion may look better, through Trump's eyes, than the status quo."

And then there is the obvious fact that an impeachment is only an indictment. An indictment with certainty of acquittal is a fool's errand. Acquittal in the Senate would be spun by Trump and his supporters as complete vindication, which - in an election dominated by impeachment rather than by any alternative Democratic agenda - would likely lead to easy re-election.

All of which brings us back to 2020 and the alternative of replacing Trump the old-fashioned, democratic way - by voting him out of office.

If Trump's behavior is as bad as is alleged, if his presidency is as destructive as is alleged, then his opponents would do well to offer the country an attractive alternative that can win an election - not engage in empty expressive politics that would likely only increase his chances of re-election.