Saint Patrick's Fire

According to the great church historian Peter Brown, early medieval Ireland's conversion was facilitated by "the decision of the nobility of the land to make their own, quickly and very much on their own terms, the religion of their foreign slaves. In so doing, they came to share in the Christian culture of the Celtic, British world which lay so near, across the Irish Sea. the result was a remarkable variant of Christianity, created, in the course of the sixth century, by the collaboration of Irishmen and West Britons" (The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity A.D. 200-1000, p. 326.)

The most famous of those West Briton, foreign slaves was, of course, the great, 5th-century, missionary Bishop whom the Church commemorates today, Saint Patrick. The son of a deacon and grandson of a priest, Patrick was born into a well-to-do family of landed gentry in the Roman province of Britain. At age 16, however, his comfortable life was suddenly interrupted when he was captured and enslaved by Irish raiders. During his subsequent six years as a slave in Ireland, Patrick’s conventional Christianity was transformed into an ardent, fervent faith. So, after a successful escape and return to Britain, he felt a call to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. Ordained a bishop, he returned to Ireland and remained there until his death on this day in 461.

Unlike Patrick’s home island of Britain, Ireland had never been part of the Roman Empire. It was thus beyond the borders of what then constituted civilization. St. Patrick stands out as among the first in Western Christian history to feel the imperative to evangelize beyond the borders of the Empire, to take literally the Gospel’s mandate to teach all nations. Indeed, Richard Fletcher calls Patrick the first "to take the scriptural injunctions literally; to grasp that teaching all nations meant teaching even barbarians who lived beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire" (The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity 371-1386 AD, p. 86).

In his own autobiographical account, Patrick described his sense of mission. “I want to spend myself in that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor. I am deeply in his debt, for he gave me the great grace that through me many peoples should be reborn in God, and then made perfect by confirmation and everywhere among them clergy ordained for a people so recently coming to believe, one people gathered by the Lord from the ends of the earth. ... It is among that people that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie. ... This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world” (Confession, 809).

One of my favorite legends about Saint Patrick recalls his lighting the Easter Fire on the Hill of Slane on March 25, 433. This was witnessed by the Irish High King's court at Tara and prompted a pagan Druid to prophesy that, unless it was extinguished immediately, Patrick's fire, lit in defiance of royal decree, would burn forever in Ireland. When I learned that story in school, it was interpreted as predicting the long-term success and durability of Patrick's evangelizing mission. And indeed that mission was successful and produced further fruit in many more missionaries who in subsequent centuries set forth from Ireland to evangelize much of the world. Yet today that flame of faith seems imperiled by the new wave of 21st-century secularism that seems to be gaining ground in much of Europe.

There may, however, be a lesson to be derived from the ancient faith's precipitous decline in the new Europe. Places like Ireland and Spain (and, on this side of the ocean, Quebec), which seemed so Catholic just a half-century ago are also places where the Church enjoyed a degree of political power which has since come to be resented, resulting in a strong secularizing reaction. Whatever the future prospects for a revitalized faith in traditionally Christian countries, whatever distinctive dynamics the New Evangelization may employ to re-light the fire, politics probably will not play the supporting part it played in the past.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

This week, Paulist Fathers, Paulist Associates, and other collaborators in Paulist ministry have been meeting for a special Pre-Assembly meeting - to set the stage, if not the precise agenda, for the forthcoming Paulist General Assembly, which will meet in New York and Washington, DC, in May and June. Although part of an ongoing process, which continues through the General Assembly, this pre-Assembly meeting has itself come at the end of an eventful and challenging year for the Church. 

It was, after all, just a little over a year ago that Pope Benedict XVI resigned the papacy. And then it was one year ago today, on March 13, 2013, that Pope Francis was elected as his successor. And what a year it has been for us all as Pope Francis has challenged us to embark on a new chapter of evangelization! Just by being himself, Pope Francis has captured the world’s imagination and interest, even as he has invited and challenged us move forward on new paths - in effect saying to the entire Church in the 21st century what Servant of God Isaac Hecker said to the Paulist Fathers in the 19th: “Our power will be in presenting the same old truths in new forms, fresh new tone and air and spirit.”

For the Paulist Fathers also, this has also been a very eventful year, as the Community has chosen a new President and a new leadership team, while grappling with the challenge of responding, with diminished numbers and reduced resources, to a rapidly changing Church and American social reality . The General Assembly and the Community’s newly elected leaders will be called upon to address many complex questions concerning the Church's mission to a North American society undergoing rapid and radical transition.

These circumstances, the lasting legacy of Servant of God Isaac Hecker, and the teaching and example of Pope Francis are challenging us all to embrace the call of the New Evangelization, which at its heart invites us all to a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ. As Pope Francis has reminded us in his recent Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, “we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters. … It is impossible to persevere in a fervent evangelization unless we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with  him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to” (Evangelii Gaudium, 265).

I think that all of us in the Church are being challenged to make the most of what may be an especially privileged moment in the history of the contemporary Church, and so to take a new look at who we are and what we are about, and to broaden our reach and that of the entire Church.

In that same Exhortation, Pope Francis has reminded us of the missionary power of intercessory prayer. And surely we all have much to pray about!

The Munich Analogy

The current crisis in the Crimea has rekindled memories of the 1938 Sudetenland crisis and evoked the ghosts of Adolph Hitler and Neville Chamberlain and the Munich Pact. Both Munich and the consequent costs of appeasement were very much invoked in the years of the Cold War. In particular, Munich was was often invoked in support of standing firm, for example, in Vietnam - leading some of the war's opponents to warn against being bewitched by historical analogy. 

And it certainly is the case that the Munich analogy has been used excessively. If international accords are routinely dismissed by their opponents as "appeasement," then it will be harder and harder to evaluate them objectively.

Having heard this so often, it seems to me that the problem with the Munich analogy is that there are really two Munich analogies - a short-term one and a long-term one, And how appropriate the analogy is entirely depends (as it did in 1938 and after) on whether a short-term or a long-term analysis is the appropriate one. 

"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war." So spoke British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his September 27, 1938, broadcast on the Sudetenland crisis.

In the short-term, surely, Chamberlain was right. And, anyway, one might ask, why shouldn't the Sudetenland have become part of Germany? It was part of Czechoslovakia only accidentally, thanks to the disastrous dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire in 1918 and the subsequent (also disastrous - and unjust) Treaty of Versailles. The post-World War I settlement had created new countries with new borders that left all sorts of people as minorities in countries they would not have chosen. Thus the Sudeten Germans, who had lived there for centuries, suddenly found themselves a minority in a newly created, non-German Czechoslovakia. That they desired union with their fellow German-speakers was perfectly natural. Nor was there anything particularly natural about the Czech border and their inclusion within it. Why should Britain or France endanger the peace of Europe to prevent the Sudeten Germans from achieving their own national self-determination? 

Looked at that way, in the short-term, Chamberlain's argument seemed to make perfect sense. But when one shifts to the longer-term, then one's perspective changes. When one interprets what was happening not just as a rectification of the injustices of the post-World War I borders, but as part of Hitler's long-term plan to dominate Europe, then the calculus changes rather significantly. In 1938, only a minority (among them, notably, Winston Churchill) were thinking long-term. Almost everyone else was thinking - and wanted to think - in short-term categories. Hence the delirium of joy throughout Western Europe when the Munich Pact was finally signed, delivering the Sudetenland to Hitler and thus avoiding a European war. Hence, Chamberlain - later to be  excoriated for appeasement - was welcomed home from Munich as a hero for peace (photo).

But then Hitler's ambitions did not stop and his larger aims could not longer be denied. Britain and France recognized this, and one year later they went to war with Germany over Poland. The difference between the two situations was their switch from a short-term calculus focused on the ostensible merits of the particular territorial dispute to a long-term calculus focused on the fundamental threat Hitler posed to the peace and stability of europe.

If one looks at the contemporary crisis in the Crimea only in terms of short-term components, then again one might ask why the West should care. Crimea had been part of Russia for centuries. Given a choice, its population probably would prefer to be Russian rather than something else. Why shouldn't they be part of the country they really identify with? And why shouldn't Russia regain its historic dignity and status?

But suppose President Putin really wants more, really wants to reassert Russian power (at least indirectly) over the rest of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union - e.g., not just Ukraine but the Baltic states and perhaps even Poland? Then the crisis takes on a different long-term significance.

As in 1938, no one now can know for sure. It was plausible to believe in September 1938 that appeasement might work. The lesson of history is that it didn't. But history is not automatic and doesn't automatically repeat itself. So we cannot know for certain which of Munich's lessons should be applied to this case. We cannot know in advance whether a Churchillian interpretation of Putin's actions is correct. But what we do know is that, if the Churchillian interpretation of Putin's long-term aggressive intentions turns out to be correct, then the consequences of not having responded accordingly now, will be that much worse later.

40 Days

Today is traditionally called Quadragesima Sunday, the ancient beginning of the 40-day season of Lent (called Quadragesima in Latin). Of course, our contemporary Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, but Ash Wednesday and the four following days were a later addition to the original Lenten season, which actually still starts counting the 40 days today, ending on the Thursday before Easter. This Sunday’s importance in the Church's calendar is highlighted by the fact that the Roman stational church for today is the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, the “Mother Church” of Rome, the Pope’s official “cathedral.” Dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, Rome’s Lateran Basilica seems an especially appropriate place to recall Christ’s 40-day fast in the desert!

But before we get to the desert, the Church today takes us all the way back to the beginning – to the garden. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed – formed, incidentally, out of the clay of the ground, the same ground out of which God made the various trees and, a little later, the various wild animals and various birds of the air. The story is a familiar one. So we are apt to let it gently pass over us (in one ear and out the other, as the saying goes). But its presence and prominence in this Lenten liturgy suggests that that would be a mistake. It’s a story, to be sure, but a special kind of, a study in story-form of who we are and what we’re about.

In this story that says so much, we learn that life itself is a gift. So too is the world, which we are not the owners of, but more like tenants. And, if that world has become less of a garden and more like a desert, the story has something to say about that too!

In the middle of the garden grows a tree – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which we soon learn is a kind of boundary, not to be touched, let alone eaten from.  It’s a reminder that human beings didn’t make the world, don’t own it, and are not completely in charge.

Neither is the smart, cunning serpent, the tempter, who acts as if he were in charge and whom tradition treats as a figure for the devil – the same Satan who will tempt Jesus in the desert, pretending there to be in charge of all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence.

The devil is a liar, but a subtle, cunning liar. Superficially, what the serpent says to Eve is true. Adam and Eve will not die – at least not right away. And their eyes will be opened to know what is good and what is evil. But, when what the tempter promises actually happens, then we quickly see how well we have been deceived!

True they did not die right away, but die they did. Through one man, Saint Paul says, sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all. The same ground we once came from, originally filled with the Creator’s breath of life, to that same ground we must all, on account of sin, return now in death – as we were so dramatically, ritually reminded this past Ash Wednesday. In case the ashes themselves weren’t clear enough as a symbol of death, we were told it in words: Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return!

As so often happens with our limited Lectionary, the 1^st reading ends abruptly. Adam and Eve try to repair the damage they have done by making themselves clothes – in effect hiding from one another. They will soon also try to hide from God, for the tempter had taught them to think of God as an enemy, as an oppressor. But, as the story continues, God does not desert them nor abandon them to their guilt. That’s good news. And it looks ahead, looks forward, to the even bigger and better news Saint Paul proclaims in the 2^nd reading. But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.

Thanks to Adam’s sin, the garden has become a desert. That is where we find ourselves now, and so where we encounter the devil – just as Jesus did. But because Jesus has himself not just encountered but defeated the devil, our own victory over Satan is already in sight. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

Homily for the 1^st Sunday of Lent, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, March 9, 2014.

Modernity's Fault Line

The original Roman stational church for this Saturday after Ash Wednesday was the church of Saint Tryphon. But, when that ancient church was demolished in the 18th century, its stational privileges (along with the martyr Tryphon's relics) were transferred to the nearby Basilica of Saint Augustine, not far from the popular tourist site of the Piazza Navona. Saint Augustine's mother, Saint Monica, who died at the Roman port of Ostia in 387, is buried in one of the church's chapels (photo).

Along with many others, I have been re-reading Saint Augustine's classic, The City of God, this year. (This Facebook reading group now numbers 1378 members!) It can get quite tedious at times. So much of Augustine's argument seems to be a repetitive rebuttal of pagan Roman beliefs - so repetitive it can fairly be described as beating a dead horse. Of course, the horse - paganism - wasn't quite dead yet. And some of those pagan belliefs - belief in astrology, for example - are faring surprisingly well in this supposedly secular, scientific age. (Thus is confirmed G.K. Chesterton's famous saying: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing — they believe in anything.")

Sandwiched in Augustine's sometimes tedious treatment of ancient Roman beliefs and his abundance of historical counter-examples are some very interesting arguments addressing issues that seem as timely today as ever. Thus, for example, in Book V, he treats the perennially complex issue of divine foreknowledge and free will.  His argument may or may not be completely convincing to a contemporary audience. But it is a serious argument. 

In the process of attacking Cicero's position on this subject, however, Augustine observes that, seeking to make men free, Cicero makes them irreverent. That is, to preserve the freedom of the human will and hence human moral responsibility, thus avoiding the ethical calamity that would ensue for society were the contrary to be affirmed, Cicero denied divine foreknowledge. Not knowing or seeing any path to affirm both, Cicero judged the religious damage done thereby to be a lesser cost to humanity than the ethical damage done by denying human freedom. To which, Augustine responds that the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety.

I think in this instance Augustine has inadvertently highlighted one of the great fault lines of modernity - the idea that God gets in the way of human freedom and fulfillment. The dominant debates tearing our society apart today mostly have to do with particular conceptions of personal freedom and fulfillment. The political Right is dominated by an increasingly shrill libertarianism that is shattering traditional moral social conventions in favor of individual freedom in relation to the economic marketplace and political community. The political Left is likewise dominated by a correspondingly shrill social libertarianism that is shattering traditional moral and cultural conventions in relation to personal behavior and non-political social institutions.

In contrast, this Sunday's scripture readings about the creation and fall of humanity and Satan's temptations of Jesus in the desert all point to a radically different understanding of human fulfillment - a vision human life lived within its own inherent limits and finding fulfillment in loving relationship with its Creator.

In the words of Saint Irenaeus (c.130-202): In proportion to God's need of nothing is humanity's need for communion with God.