Christ the King

On this annual celebration of Christ the King, the Church challenges us to contemplate Christ’s return in majesty - his coming again “in glory” (as we say all the time in the Creed) “to judge the living and the dead.”

Traditionally, we speak of two judgments – the general and the particular. Like Michelangelo’s famous fresco in the Sistine Chapel, today’s gospel portrays that final, general judgment, which we associate with the end of time. Yet, as we also know, that final, general judgment will just ratify and confirm the particular judgment of each one of us at end of our individual life - in effect, the individual end of the world for each one of us personally. Likewise, that particular judgment just confirms each one of us individually in the kind of life he or she has been living on earth - confirming each one of us individually in the kind of person you and I have each chosen to become over the course of our life, and, consequently, where each of us will stand eternally in relation to God.

Around the end of World War II, the British author C.S. Lewis wrote a short story, The Great Divorce, a fantasy, in which the narrator finds himself at a bus stop in hell (which resembles a rather dreary 1940s English town in apparently perpetual drizzle). There he joins a group of quarrelsome, grumpy ghosts on a bus trip to the outskirts of heaven, where they are to be offered yet one more opportunity to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell.

The narrator then listens in on a series of conversations between the bus passengers and some representatives from heaven - people they previously knew in life, who now try to persuade them to change. (It’s as if some of the “sheep” on the Son of Man’s right side in the gospel story were to try one last time to persuade some of the “goats” to transfer their allegiance from left to right).

One visitor, for example, asks whether heaven will give greater scope for his talents and, what he calls, “an atmosphere of free inquiry.” His friend responds: “No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.” Meanwhile, another heavenly figure poignantly pleads with one of the visitors from hell: “Could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?”

Overwhelmingly, as in the Gospel account we just heard [Matthew 25:31-46], the visitors seem obstinately unwilling to acknowledge the true nature, implications, and consequences of how they had lived, remaining forever focused only on themselves. As one of heaven’s residents explains to the narrator (who is understandably perplexed by so many seeming to choose hell over heaven): “There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy – that is, to reality.” That is why each one becomes, as one of the heavenly figures explains, “nearly nothing,” that is “shrunk, shut up in itself.”

Lewis wrote a novel, not systematic theology. Like the Gospel’s judgment story, however, it illustrates the unity between the faith we profess and the life it challenges us to lead. It reminds us that we may not simply believe in some private personal way, devoid of larger social - even political - implications. And it dramatically captures how, by my own choices and actions here and now, I can either identify with others or cut myself off from others, and thus ultimately either be forever united with or be forever separated from the one and only source of life, and light, and love, and joy, in whose presence – and only in whose presence – can I hope to thrive for all eternity. Both stories illustrate how the person that I will be forever is the person I am presently in the process of becoming – by how I am living here and now. What I do matters. How I live matters. My actions, my relationships, my entire life matter.

It is, of course, a process – a lifelong process. Listening to Jesus passing judgment in today’s gospel, many of us might wonder how we could ever qualify to be judged as one of the sheep on his right. Many of us might wonder whether we could ever sufficiently overcome our preoccupation with ourselves and do enough for others to be judged as one of the sheep on his right. On a quantitative scale, the fact is we will fall somewhat short of what we would hope to become; what we do will likely fall short of what we believe. But, on the qualitative scale of our ultimate allegiance, we may confidently hope to be aligned in the right direction.

Today, the Church celebrates Christ’s glorious kingship, inviting us to align ourselves with Jesus Christ, who overcame the great gulf between God and us by becoming one of us, and who now challenges us to recognize his continued presence among us in our brothers and sisters, and thus to acknowledge Christ’s kingship here and now, and so enjoy citizenship in his kingdom forever.

Most modern monarchs – for example, the 10 currently reigning European ones, we are probably most familiar with –ascend their thrones rather peacefully, according to established constitutional rules. Once enthroned, a King (or Queen) functions as a sort of social glue that bonds his or her people together and helps create a powerful experience of political unity and community, distinct and separate from others. Like earthly monarchs, Christ the King bonds his people together and creates a special and distinct community. In ascending his throne, however, Christ the King has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. Bonding his people together in a network of faith and hope lived out in love and mutual service, Christ the King is even now creating a unique community, commanding one’s ultimate and absolute allegiance, in which one must ultimately be either a citizen or not. And that begins here and now, as the person I am becomes, however imperfectly, the person I hope to be for all eternity.

Homily for Christ the King, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, November 20, 2011.

Forming a Government

Someone asked me recenlty for my thoughts on Proportional Representation. I am no specialist in voting systems and claim no expertise in such matters. Back when I was a political sicentist, one typically distinguished broadly between single-member electoral schemes in which the candidate with a majority or plurality of the votes in a district wins the seat (the system that has historically predominated in the UK and was inherited from Britain by the US and Canada) and various schemes of “Proportional Representation” which seek to address the evident overall inequity in the single-member system by allocating the seats in Parliament in some proportion to the performance of the competing political parties (a method, variations of which, was at various times adopted in various European parliamentary democracies). The PR method recognizes the existenceof more than one political party – and in turn encourages the existence of multiple parties. Typically such parties represents relatively narrow interests and/or ideologies. In parliamentary systems, when no party commands a majority, typically two or more parties must form an alliance – a coalition – in orderfor the country to be governmed. In such societies, the King, Queen, or President, in additon to performing the “dignified” fucntions of government in his/her role as Head of State is often at the center of the negotiations between/among the competing parties leading to the eventual formaiton of a coalition government. The US, of course, has a presidential system rather than a parliamentary system. So coalition governments in that sense cannot be formed. The American Presidnecy is in that sense the ultimate “single-member district.” Of course, coalitions have historically been formed in American politics – but before rather than after the election. Whereas parliamentary systems with proportional representation encourage more narrowly based, ideologically principled parties, which must then compromise after the election by forming a coalition in order to govern, the American system traditonally has favored forming coalitions before the election, in the form of our traditionally broad-based “big tent’ political parties. It is obvious that each system has its merits and advantages – and disadvantages. So which system one may prefer probably at any particular time depends on what sorts of outcomes one wants to see.

The current serious political dysfunction in the US results in large part from the fact that our two parties are no longer such coalitions. When I was a political scientist, there were liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and conservative Democrats. For a whole host of reasons – among them reapportionment and the greater number of “safe” districts, on the one hand, and the rise of political primaries and the increased importance of money in elections, on the other – the two parties have become much more ideologically “pure.” Republicans candidates and primary voters are way more to the right than the population as a whole, while Democratic candidates and primary voters have become way more to the left than the population as a whole. And the “center,” while it may still exist in the nation, no longer exists at all in government. Hence, the inability of congress to compromise and achieve a “Grand Bargain” on taxes and spending, for example. And it hardly matters that Congress is is held in such notorious disrepute as a result, that a mere 9% of the population has a positive view of Congress, for example. Most incumbents will probably be re-elected – especially if they remain uncompromisingly faithful to the more extreme positions embraced by the likely primary voters in their parties.

So we now have the worst of both worlds – narrowly based, ideological parties competing with one another, but unable to do the equivalent of “forming a government.”

"And Thus We Came to Rome" (Acts 28:14)

Today's reading at Mass from the conclusion of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 28:11-16, 30-31), on this annual memorial of the Dedication of St. Peter's Basilica on the Vatican Hill and St. Paul's Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiense, reads like a travel narrative, describing how Paul finally arrived in Rome. Of course, the whole book of Acts is itself a travel narrative - not just of Paul's (and others') journeys and adventures in the service of the gospel, but the journey of the gospel itself as it travels outward from Jerusalem. Just as Luke's Gospel began in Jerusalem (with Zechariah sacrificing in the Temple and seeing an angel), so too Luke's second volume, Acts, began in Jerusalem (with Jesus's ascension from the Mount of Olives and the apostles's daily prayer in the Temple). But, whereas Luke's Gospel also ended in Jerusalem, Acts recounts the steady, seeming inexorable expansion of the apostolic community outward from Jerusalem, outward finally all the way to the capital of the world, Rome. And thus we came to Rome (Acts 28:14) is not, therefore, just some historical anecdote but a thematic summary of the history of the apostolic Church - and the mission of the Church in every age and era.

Today's Gospel account (Matthew 14:22-33) of Peter walking toward Jesus on the water, only to become frightened and begin to sink and then be rescued by Jesus' outstretched hand, always reminds me of those cartoons I used to watch on Saturday mornings as a boy, in which the character would run off a cliff and keep going until suddenly he looks down and realizes he is walking on air, whereupon he immediately begins to fall. Peter had no trouble walking on the water while he was focused on Jesus. Once he focused on himself, however, his precarious situation started to sink him. Fortunately, Jesus was still there, and Peter could call out to him - refocus - and be saved. That's an unsubtle metaphor for the mission and life of the Church, precariously tossed about by the waves and apparently even beginning to sink, but saved by it focus on the object of its faith, Jesus. The apostles' ministry outward to the world - and Peter's particular ministry as the apostles' leader and spokesman - could never succeed (or even make sense) on the basis of themselves but could only succeed by remaining faithful to Jesus whose witnesses they were commissioned to be. So too the Church succeeds not by human prowess but by fidelity to to the witness of its founding apostles and to the mission entrusted by Christ to the Church through those great apostles.

And so the gospel came to Rome, as from Rome it continues to go out to all the world.

Homily for the Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, November 18, 2011.

"And with your spirit"

The Latin words Dominus vobiscum ("the Lord be with you") - and the response et cum spiritu tuo (“and with your spirit”) - were once among the best known words of the Catholic Mass. In the pre 1970 rite, the priest typically said it 8 times – at the end of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, before the Collect (“Opening Prayer”), before the Gospel, at the Offertory, at the Preface, before the Postcommunion, before the Dismissal, and finally before beginning the Last Gospel. At sung Mass, all but the first and last of these verses and responses would have been sung. Four times (before the Collect, at the Offertory, before the Postcommunion, and before the Dismissal) the priest would turn around and face the people to say or sing Dominus vobiscum – unless, of course, he was already facing the people, a relative rarity in the English-speaking world, but the norm, for example, at solemn Papal Mass in the Major Basilicas of Rome. (The old Missal pointedly provided for this contingency in its directions on how to celebrate Mass.)

The familiar response et cum spiritu tuo (“and with your spirit”) has been the universal response in both Eastern and Western Churches since at least the year 215. (According to one 5th-century author, the word “spirit” refers “not to the soul of the priest but to the Spirit he has received through the laying on of hands” and represents the community’s prayer that the priest may fulfill his role as celebrant in the grace bestowed upon him by the Holy Spirit).

Since the shift to the vernacular in the 1960s, it has been translated accordingly in almost every language (e.g., y con tu espiritu, und mit deinem geist, etc.) One notorious exception, however, has been English, in which for the past four decades the congregation has been reduced to responding “and also with you.”

(I’m sure we have all heard the familiar joke about the priest who at the start of Mass realizes his microphone is not working and says, “There is something wrong with this microphone,” to which his automatic-pilot congregation loudly responds “And also with you”).

In just under three weeks, this anomaly will be corrected as a new, revised translation of the Roman Missal is introduced. The entire order of the Mass – both the Ordinary (the normally unchanging parts) and the Proper (the parts that vary from day to day) – has been re-translated. Only the scripture readings in the liturgy of the Word (contained in a separate book, The Lectionary) will not change, since they are taken ultimately from previously authorized translations of the Bible. (In the United States, the New American Bible is the scripture translation in official use in the liturgical books).

The main concern underlying this new translation seems to be to make the words worshipers hear and recite accord as literally as possible with the base Latin text. For various reasons, the translation in use these past 40 or so years took certain liberties with the text in the name of what is called “dynamic equivalence.” In the process, much of the poetry and dignity of the words was lost – as were all sorts of familiar phrases (e.g,, the triple “through my fault” in the Confiteor, the Centurion’s words in the Domine, non sum dignus before Communion, etc.) In returning to the principle of “formal equivalence” in the translation process, we will now have a text that is both more faithful to the original and more elevated in its words, sentence structure, and cadence than its 1970s predecessor.

The new translation should be welcomed as a further spur to recovering a more reverent style of worship and a fuller sense of what the liturgy is about. Even so, change is always challenging, and some will undoubtedly find these changes somewhat difficult. (I remember well what it was like when we went from Latin to English, when “the changes,” as they were then commonly called, were first imposed upon relatively unprepared and unsuspecting congregations in the mid 1960s!) Now – as back then – these changes should remind us all that the liturgy is the Church’s common worship and not our private individual prayer, and that it is in fact a gift from the Church to be received by us with fidelity – and gratitude.

Enough Oil in One's Lamp

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray Thy kingdom come; and at Mass we conclude the Lord’s Prayer by saying as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. (In three weeks, that will become as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ).
Yet I think it is safe to suggest that, despite what we say in our prayers and despite the intrinsic importance of the topic, most of us, most of the time, probably don’t expend a lot of energy thinking about Christ’s coming again. That’s except, of course, for those who do! They, however, sometimes seem to think about it maybe a little too much, as happens particularly with individuals or groups that think the Lord’s coming can be precisely predicted, especially in relation to events that may be presently occurring in the world.
Now, of course, there’s really not a lot that’s new about any of this. It’s obvious from St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians, from which we just heard [4:13-18], that Paul’s audience apparently expected Christ’s coming to occur soon – and so were worried whether those who died in the interim would miss out on something. And Paul himself, while telling the Thessalonians not to worry about that, obviously also expected it to happen soon and expected to be alive himself, as he says, to meet the Lord in the air.
Meanwhile in today’s Gospel [Matthew 25:1-13], Jesus seems to be addressing least least two different groups, covering all the bases, so to speak. To those who think that the Lord’s coming can be predicted, he says you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus says this at the end of a parable about a wedding feast – a standard image in both the Old and the New Testaments for the coming kingdom of God – but a wedding for which the bridegroom was long delayed.
On the other hand, to those apparently not so concerned about the Lord’s coming, Jesus cites the case of the five foolish virgins, who brought no oil with them, when taking their lamps, and so, when the bridegroom finally arrived, found the door to the wedding feast locked solid.
At an ordinary wedding in Jesus’ time, the bridesmaids would have waited with the bride at her house for the bridegroom to come and lead her to his home. But the coming of the kingdom doesn’t follow the ready-made script of an ordinary wedding. Hence, the delay.
As St. Paul and other 1st-century Christians eventually came to understand, the delay would turn out to be a lot longer than they had ever expected. Like the bridesmaids in the parable, it’s only natural for us to settle down, so to speak, for the long haul, making ourselves comfortable in the here and now. But sooner or later the call will come: “Behold the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” And when the call comes, then, like the five wise virgins, we must be ready. Each one of us individually must be ready.
In an age when taking responsibility for one’s life and one’s actions seems so counter-cultural, so increasingly out of fashion, the question comes up: why couldn’t the wise virgins share some of their oil? In an age when taking responsibility for one’s life and one’s actions seems increasingly out of fashion, the most jarring thing about this parable may be the fact that, when the kingdom comes, there will be no one else to pin the blame on if I have let my lamp go out. When the time comes, each one of us individually must be ready to meet the Lord with the lamp of I have made of my own life.
Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, November 6, 2011