Ascension Thursday

This is the 40th day of Easter, which since the 4th century  has been observed as the feast of the Ascension (in keeping with the clear chronology of Acts 1). In the calendar of the Universal Church, that is still the case. But in many places around the world - including much of the United States - the Ascension has been postponed to next Sunday, which some may see as as way of keeping the Ascension visible in an era of decreasing holy day attendance, while others may see it as signaling that Ascension just isn't quite as important as it used to be when we were expected to make room for it in our ordinary schedules.

Of course, in the long run it may not matter much whether we celebrate Ascension on Thursday or on Sunday. As Sunday Mass competes increasingly unsuccessfully with Sunday Brunch. soccer, and any number of other alternatives, the Lord's Day too no longer seems as important as it used to when we expected to take time to observe it. But that is another issue for another day!

Back to the Ascension, whatever day we celebrate it, I think we do ourselves a disservice when we ignore its importance. It is no accident that the Roman Canon treats Ascension as one of the five most special feasts of the year (along with Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost). And, in its ancient Roman way, the Canon also highlights why Ascension is so important: Celebrating that most sacred day on which your Only Begotten Son, our Lord, placed at the right hand of your glory our weak human nature, which he had united to himself.

We can easily fall into treating Ascension - and Pentecost, with which it is so closely related - as just historical commemorations. The Risen Lord ascended to his Father and stopped appearing on earth. Then 10 days later his disciples received the Holy Spirit and began the Church. There is nothing wrong with that formulation. But is very incomplete. It minimizes our appreciation of why Ascension and Pentecost matter now.

Whether celebrated on its proper day or on Sunday, Ascension is about where the Risen Christ is now, enthroned at the right hand of the Father, where he lives forever to intercede for us (Hebrews 7:25). The Church today lives on, continuing Christ's life and mission in the world, in that intercessory dynamic. The Church's participation in that dynamic is facilitated by the Triune God's outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not just on some long-ago Pentecost and not just on some moderately memorable Confirmation Day, but here and now, and now and forever.

Thus, the practice of observing the 9-days' interval between today and Pentecost as a Novena for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit is not just some historical play-acting but an earnest identification with the Church's founding for the sake of her ongoing life and mission in the present.

After Indiana

Well, it is done. The Republicans will be nominating Donald Trump in Cleveland, come July. Watching Trump's victory speech last night, one might well have wondered whether he ever expected this when he launched his campaign. Clearly much of the country didn't - at least the cultural and political establishment certainly didn't. Watching the pundits comment on Trump's victory speech, it seemed that they too were still trying to get a clear handle on what has happened.  I found most of the commentary unenlightening, as one pundit after another expressed this or that disappointment with how his speech failed to measure up to the moment - apparently forgetting or ignoring the fact that Trump's appeal and success have largely come from his not following the conventional political playbook and that his rivals who did conform to more standard establishment expectations are now off the stage.

In Indiana, the ultimate hard-right ideologue went down to defeat - and with him ended the conservative movement's modern conquest of the Republican party. That can change, of course, as things so often do change in politics. The various strains of ideological conservatism that have allied in the modern Republican party are not going away. But it seems unlikely that the Republican party's promotion of policies aimed to benefit the top tier of society will be able to recover the widespread support of working class voters whose real interests the party has habitually ignored. Each element has finally been forced to see the other - and what motivates the other. And they really don't like each other. 

We used to pray in the Litany of the Saints  Ab ira et odio et omni mala voluntate, libera nos, Domine ("From anger and hatred and all evil will, deliver us, O Lord"). It is a petition we would do well to retrieve! Anger, hatred, and evil will are powerful forces and may well have more to do with deciding elections than we sometimes care to credit.

And therein lies a message for the Democrats. It remains to be seen what, if anything, the Democrats may make of this opportunity. It remains to be seen whether they can emerge from this election as America's natural governing party, instead of just another alternative identity group politics party, complicit with the Republicans in promoting anger, hatred and evil will.

Trump and Plato

Fresh from his quintuple landslide victory in last week's "Acela Primary," Donald Trump seems poised to do it again today in Indiana. If he does, he may well be unstoppable. If, somehow, "Lucifer in the Flesh" (a.k.a. Ted Cruz) were to beat him, Trump's path to the nomination would be more challenging, but by no means impossible. Either way, the political class finds itself increasingly paralyzed. And this is increasingly the case for all political elites, not just the deservedly demeaned Republican "Establishment."

Much has been said and written about the Trump phenomenon - much of it insightful, some not so. Increasingly, elite commentary has come to recognize the root of the Trump phenomenon in the simultaneous moral and economic collapse of "blue-collar" culture, the so-called "white working class," who were once the "base" of the Democratic party's FDR coalition, but were undeservedly abandoned by the Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s, abandoned and left to become "Reagan Democrats" in the 1980s. These voters were successfully appealed to by religious and cultural demagoguery, despite the evident conflict between their economic interests and those of the economic elites served by conservative ideology and policies. That monumental moral and economic collapse, paralleled by a contemporaneous rise in new media and celebrity culture that has trashed whatever remained of traditional values and traditional authorities, has fostered the rise of Trump.

True enough, but that awareness still skims the surface of our political distemper. The time is ripe for even deeper analysis. At times, watching the players on this year's stage, I have inwardly thanked my long-ago formation in the school of political philosophy for having at least provided a conceptual vocabulary with which to understand - and to judge - the plethora of phenomena that have paved the path for Trump's ascendance.

So I was more than edified to read Andrew Sullivan's eminent contribution to this discussion in yesterday's issue of New York Magazine, "America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny"

(See http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html.)

Sullivan's masterful analysis, which is really less about Donald Trump and more about post-modern America, is simply summed up in his subtitle: "Democracies end when they are too democratic. And right now America is a breeding ground for tyranny."

Sullivan takes us back to Plato's Republic, where Socrates traces an inevitable deterioration of democracy into tyranny, the progressive decline of all traditionally established values in an egalitarian libertarian free-for-all, until a demagogue (usually an oligarch) wins over the mob to make a tyranny. Sullivan finds it "increasingly hard not to see in Plato's vision a murky reflection of our own hyperdemocratic times and in Trump a demagogic, tyrannical character plucked directly out of the first books about politics ever written."

Sullivan credits the Founding Fathers' familiarity with Plato for the safeguards they built into our constitution, "barriers between the popular will and the exercise of power." My own guess is that Aristotle and Polybius were more direct ancient influences, but the basic point remains the same. As is the fact that over time those well constructed barriers have largely been deconstructed. Simultaneously, our notion of qualification for office has correspondingly deteriorated. "Once," Sullivan reminds us, "candidates built a career through experience in elected or Cabinet positions or as military commanders; they were effectively selected by peer review. That elitist sorting mechanism has slowly imploded." 

Here I would add as an example par excellence how even the one reform that was an attempt to moderate this decline - the Democratic party's "Super Delegates" - is now under widespread popular attack. "Super Delegates," who are largely party leaders and those who actually have been elected to actual political offices with real responsibilities, were a reaction to changes in the process that had produced candidates like McGovern in 1972, who could never get elected, and Carter in 1976, who accidentally got elected (largely in reaction to Nixon's Watergate) but whose character as an "outsider" made him ineffective at governing and guaranteed his defeat in 1980.

Add to all this the modern media democracy, and Sullivan sees "precisely what the Founders feared about democratic culture: feeling, emotion, and narcissism rather than reason, empiricism, and public-spiritedness." 

Meanwhile, the stage was being set for a mass movement of the disenfranchised against the elites, led by an oligarch who remained culturally connected with the masses, who have been betrayed by global economic forces supported by elites in both parties. Meanwhile, too, the very fabric of social life at the bottom has frayed as religion, the family, and traditional social groupings have declined leaving those most at risk also the most isolated.

"And so," Sullivan warns, "late-stage capitalism is creating a righteous, revolutionary anger that late-stage democracy has precious little ability to moderate or constrain - and has actually helped exacerbate."

Sullivan strongly denounces the elites' "demonization of the white working class world" - whether by elite students at Ivy League colleges who tell the struggling white worker to "check his privilege" or "the gay left, for whom the word magnanimity seems unknown, even in the wake of stunning successes."

Back to Plato, we are reminded that the tyrant is typically unable to control his own self. Unable to control his own passions, he unleashes the violent passions of others. Provocative behavior at political rallies that in the past would have been perceived as disqualifying someone for high office no longer does so. "It would be disqualifying," Sullivan suggests, "if our hyperdemocracy hadn't already abolished disqualifications."

Sullivan pulls no punches. He considers Trump "an extinction-level event." He castigates Sanders for "playing into Trump's hands." And he offers some parting advice to the likely Democratic nominee and her party: "She needs to grasp the lethality of her foe, moderate the kind of identity politics that unwittingly empowers him, make an unapologetic case that experience and moderation are not vices, address much more directly the anxieties of the white working class - and Democrats must listen."

Forty years ago, when I was teaching political philosophy, it was still possible for students to grasp the significance of Plato's and Aristotle's and others' warnings over the centuries about moral and social collapse and consequent political dysfunction. I don't know how many still study such subjects any more, but hopefully their timeless lessons will not be lost when they are most relevant.

Quicumque vult

Today's feast of Saint Athanasius (297-373), Bishop of Alexandria, vigorous opponent of Arianism at the Council of Nicea (325) and after, and Doctor of the Church, seems a suitable occasion to recall (and even recite) the so-called "Athanasian Creed." More properly referred to by its title Symbolum Quicumque Vult, the so-called "Athanasian Creed" was almost certainly not composed by Saint Athanasius at all. The Creed's apocryphal association with Athanasius no doubt derives from its very strong affirmation of orthodox (i.e., anti-Arian) Christian faith in the Trinity, the faith Athanasius defended so forcefully. 

Up until the middle of the 20th-century, the "Athanasian Creed" was traditionally part of the Sunday morning office of Prime, when it was said or sung after the psalms on Trinity Sunday and on all "ordinary" Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost (unless a Double feast or Octave occurred). The pre-conciliar rubrical reform of 1960 reduced its mandatory recitation solely to Trinity Sunday, and it disappeared completely in the post-conciliar Breviary.

I first encountered this so-called "Athanasian Creed" in our religion textbook as a high school freshman in 1961, and I vividly remember our reciting it in unison in class. Its origin is obviously as liturgical text meant to be sung, and I remember the chant-like, sing-song way we 30 freshman boys recited it with our teacher (who read along with us, translating from his Latin Breviary). Even now, i can recall some of its repetitive verses: 

The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

The Father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit infinite.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.

And also they are not three uncreated, nor three infinites, but one uncreated and one infinite.

And so, on and on, it went, affirming the Church's faith in each Person of the Trinity.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers;

one Son, not three Sons;.

one Hoy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

The Creed continues after its long Trinitarian section with a strong Christological section, affirming the Church's orthodox faith in Christ, who is not two, but one Christ.

One, altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person.

For linguistically challenged moderns, for whom even the Nicene Creed's consubstantial with the Father is for some reason difficult, it is easy to see why the Church's third ancient Creed is increasingly unused. 

Which is sad, however, because the language really is wonderful. And who nows what contemporary revivals of ancient heresies we might be better equipped to avoid if we were all more fully steeped in the ancient language of Trinitarian and Christological orthodox faith?

Deciding To Include

For 1st-century Jews, the fundamental division of the world was between Jews and Gentiles. So imagine their surprise when Gentiles started responding to the good news about Jesus and asked for baptism! The first Christians were all Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah sent to fulfill the promises God made to Israel. Yet Peter himself on at least one occasion and now Paul and Barnabas on a more regular basis had preached the gospel to Gentiles and had baptized them - without requiring them to become Jews first. How was this possible?

No one should underestimate how unexpected and difficult this development was and how disruptive it was in the life of the early Church. It was every bit as challenging as it would have been to rethink the relationship of male and female or master and slave. No wonder there was disagreement and outright conflict!

And yet, faced with a crisis for which nothing in their previous background had prepared them, but on which the Church’s entire future was going to depend, that first Christian generation faced the challenge to resolve the problem, reassessing everything they had assumed until then, in light of the fundamental experience they shared with the Gentile converts – faith in the Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we all know how they solved the immediate issue. We just heard the decision read to us [Acts 15:1-2, 22-29]. Just as Jews could follow Jesus and become Jewish Christians, so too Greeks, while still remaining Greek, could follow Jesus and become Greek – not Jewish – Christians. This radical decision simultaneously affirmed both the universal significance of Christ as the savior of all peoples without exception, while also allowing for diversity within what, in today’s terminology, we would call a multi-cultural Church. Historically, it was this decision that made it possible for Christianity to expand throughout the ancient world and for the Church to grow into a truly global community.

Thanks to that fundamental experience, that both Jewish and Gentile converts shared, of the new thing that had happened in the world with Jesus, they felt empowered to resolve the problem. Note their choice of words: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us.”

In the ancient Mediterranean world of small city-states, the greatest thing one could be was a citizen, entitled to participate in political deliberation and debate. But citizenship as an active way of life (as opposed to just passive possession of rights and privileges) had seriously deteriorated as small city-states had been absorbed into one enormous empire, and people had lost the sense that they could accomplish anything through political participation. Yet, faced with the unexpected, the Christians now felt able to resolve it by discussion and debate – or, as we would say in suitably churchy language, discernment. Their confidence, of course, was in the Holy Spirit, the Risen Christ’s gift to his Church. When they said “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us,” they were not equating themselves with the Holy Spirit but rather were recognizing that the Holy Spirit had really been at work in what was happening – Gentiles joining the Church – and was with them then in their collective effort to make sense of it.

So often we feel overwhelmed by problems - rather than challenged by them – and so react passively, as if we were silent spectators in the story of our lives. It was not easy for the early Christians to give up their inherited assumptions about the necessity of circumcision and Jewish observance. But they were empowered to do so by the power of the Risen Christ continually present and active in his Church through the Holy Spirit, teaching them to interpret their new experience.

The history of the Church was irrevocably shaped by this event. This “Council of Jerusalem,” as it came to be called, became a model for how to come to grips with new and pressing problems – neither refusing to move forward nor casually jettisoning the past, but rather carefully considering everything in light of the fundamental experience of what the Risen Christ has revealed.

The “Council of Jerusalem” also gets a positive mention in Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation on the Family. Quoting the Final Report of last year’s Synod on the Family, the Pope cites two competing ways of thinking about certain situations – one which excludes and another which tries to include. He notes that from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, the Church’s way is to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart [Amoris Laetitia, 296; Relatio 2015, 51].

The difficult family situations about which the Pope and the Synod are speaking are obviously very different issues from those that confronted the Apostolic Church at its “Council of Jerusalem.” The similarity is not so much the historical situations but the Apostolic Church’s method of discernment and accompaniment – trying to makes sense of a new situation in the light of their common experience of the Risen Christ and accompanying the Gentile converts so as to enable them to become fuller members of the Church community.

The Church, as the anticipation in space and time of the eternal new Jerusalem we heard about in the 2nd reading [Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23], is challenged to be a widely diverse but all-inclusive, society, in which the Risen Lord has brought us all together as one new people and has empowered us with his peace [John 14:23-29] – not quite peace as the world gives peace, but precisely the kind of peace our conflicted, divided, and fractured world needs so much.

Homily for the 6^th Sunday of Easter, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, May 1, 2016.