Becoming a Disciple - For Real

Science teaches us, what all of human history confirms, that from infancy our brains quickly distinguish between those who are members of our group and those who are not, and encourage us to be more friendly to the former and more hostile to - or fearful of - the latter. Scientific studies have shown, what again all of human history confirms, that infants favor what is familiar to them, responding more positively to people who resemble them – and their parents – in appearance and language, a pattern that persists among adults. So as adults we too tend to favor what is familiar, people who are familiar, and to be apprehensive, fearful, or at least somewhat skeptical of others.  We tend to respond more favorably, more trustingly, more empathetically, more generously to members of our own group - family members, teammates, fellow citizens of the nation with which we identify.  At its best, this inclines us to love our families and take care of one another, to be loyal to organizations we are part of, to pay our taxes and fulfill our other civic responsibilities, even to the point of risking our lives to defend our nation against hostile attacks from other nations.

These relationships can, of course, also limit us and cause us to get into all sorts of conflicts with those in groups other than our own. To some extent what we call civilization is all about managing these relationships and minimizing those conflicts, sometimes stretching us to expand the boundaries of those we identify with and consequently care about. At its best, that has been the story of the United States. Our national story, despite powerful past and present efforts to forget it, has been all about the coming together of different races and nations, forming one nation out of many, creating one common community of citizens.

For most of us, most of time, we depend on these networks of family, culture, and society, relationships without which we could not successfully navigate through life alone. So, of course, did Jesus’ disciples, who were undoubtedly shocked by Jesus’ challenge to the importance of those relationships [Luke 14:25-33], as we too would be if we actually paid attention to Jesus’ words and actions.

To an outside observer, much of American religion might seem very family-oriented, -surprisingly so when compared with Jesus’s own words and actions in a society which was, if anything, far more family-centered than ours is.  To an outside observer, much of American religion might also seem very preoccupied with acquiring political power, surprisingly so when compared with Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus’ challenge to rethink all our relationships and refocus our sense of community and loyalty seems so extreme – and extremely demanding - with the inevitable result that, while we may hear Jesus’ words, we may not really be ready to listen all that intently. Yet Jesus does challenge us, if we are really serious about being his disciples, to listen to all his words – not just the nice, comforting, convenient ones. And, if listening makes me worry that I may be too attached to my family, friends, and fellow-citizens, that I am too swayed in my judgments by people who are close to me and whom I care a lot about, perhaps too timid at times about disagreeing with them or challenging them, or, if listening to Jesus’ words makes me worry whether I am too attached to people and things, well that is what listening to Jesus is supposed to do, that is the effect it is supposed to have.

Most of us, of course, are usually quite uncomfortable with words that challenge. And, because most of us have families, friends, and possessions, we probably prefer Jesus’ more sensible-sounding sayings – like the parable of the tower or the one about the king marching into battle. That’s the sensible Jesus we all know and love – or, rather, love to know – a Jesus who provides prudent practical advice that respects regular common sense and our ordinary human feelings. The prudent tower-builder and the cautious king who knows when it’s time to fight and when it’s time to negotiate are examples we can all relate to – good examples of reasonable people who know how to put their priorities in order and whom we would all do well to imitate in our day-to-day lives.

But, just as we all know (or think we know) how to set short-term priorities, Jesus also challenges us to pick the proper priorities and act accordingly in the long term too – and to let no shorter-term personal relationship or possession deflect us from our long-term goal.

With all the people and things that constantly compete for our attention – nice people and nice things, without which we would find it hard to live in society – Jesus wants us to focus, first of all, on him. But, with all the people and things that constantly compete for our attention, who knows where and how far focusing on Jesus will take us, just how much of a disruption it may prove to be?

Today’s 2nd reading [Philemon 9b-10, 12-17] reminds us of the disruption becoming a Christian caused in the comfortable, socially respectable life of Philemon, whom Paul had at some point converted, and who had acquired a respectable position in the local Church as the host in whose house the local Church assembled. Meanwhile, Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, had run away and apparently found his way to Paul, who then converted him too. Paul apparently appreciated Onesimus, whom he saw as a potential partner in his missionary efforts; but instead he sent him back to his owner, with a letter imploring Philemon to welcome Onesimus back as he would welcome Paul himself, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you as a man and in the Lord.

In a world of precisely structured social relationships, the new, outside-that-structure relationship of being a disciple of Jesus, changed everything and transformed all those existing social relationships. It had done so for Paul himself. It was doing so for Onesimus. And it would do so (as Paul confidently hoped) for Onesimus’ owner Philemon. The stories of Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon show just what happens when we take seriously our new relationship with Jesus and the whole new network of relationships that being a follower of Jesus creates among fellow believers.

Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, September 8, 2019.

The Nativity of Mary

In the post-1969 Roman Calendar, tomorrow's feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary will pass uncommemorated in the liturgy, thanks to the contemporary calendar's inexplicable allergy to multiple commemorations occurring on the same day. This is unfortunate, not only because of the great antiquity of tomorrow's feast, but because such ancient and once widely observed celebrations are nowadays noticed by virtually no one - except when they displace a Sunday as, for example, the Birth of Saint John the Baptist does every few years when June 24 falls on a Sunday..

The traditional story of Mary's birth is, of course, completely apocryphal. The earliest account comes from the very influential (2nd-century) Protoevangelium of James, from which we get the traditional names, Joachim and Anne, for Mary's parents. A different (but obviously not completely unrelated account) also occurs in the Qur'an. Islam considers both Jesus and Mary as having been born untouched by Satan. 

Mary's freedom from all sin from the very beginning of her existence is, of course, the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which is celebrated on its own feast on December 8. (That too will fall on a Sunday this year. Instead of being completely ignored, it at least will get transferred to the following day. Since, however, the obligation to assist at Mass does not get transferred with it, it too will likely pass largely unnoticed by many.) 

Mary's entrance into this world free from original sin is what makes her an exception to the general rule that it is a saint's death but not his or her birth that is celebrated in the liturgy. (According to the traditional interpretation of Luke 1:15, John the Baptist was purified from original sin while still in his mother's womb. Hence his birth is also celebrated - six months before Christmas, on June 24.)

It is generally thought that the current celebration of Mary's birth on September 8 is derived from the 5th-century dedication of a church in Jerusalem on the supposed site of her parents home by the biblical pool of Bethsaida or Bethesda. The crusader-era Church of Saint Anne stands on that site today (photo). 

Given the antiquity of the (albeit apocryphal) traditions associated with Mary's birth and the ubiquity of its celebration both Eastern and Western liturgical traditions, we would do well to find some way to revive the popularity of this celebration.

Remembering My Novice Master - Fr. Thomas Stransky, CSP (1930-1989)

“What is the Church becoming? When someone like Fr. Stransky is here, I think she is waking up.” So wrote Thomas Merton, on August 9, 1962. Even if confided to his private Journal and not published until decades later, that was still quite an accolade!

Milwaukee-born, Paulist Father Thomas Stransky, who died yesterday on his 89th birthday, was ordained a priest in 1957. Subsequently sent to study in Germany and then in Rome, in 1960 he became part of the original staff of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, which Pope Saint John XXIII had established in preparation for the Second Vatican Council. (In the photo, Fr. Stransky is the young priest at the far right of the picture.) He only left the Secretariat in 1970 after his election as President of the Paulist Fathers, but continued as one of the Secretariat's Consultors and continued to be active in ecumenical activities, culminating in his 11 years as Director of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem (1988-1999). During his eventful tenure as Paulist President (1970-1978), the community expanded its mission, assuming pastoral responsibility for many new parishes around the country - among them here in Knoxville, TN, where the Paulists have served now since 1973. 

From 1981 to 1988, he served as Paulist Fathers' Novice Master, presiding over the initial year of formation for each year's new class of novices discerning religious life and priesthood as potential members of the Paulist community. Fr. Stranskly will be remembered rightly for his many ecumenical endeavors and his prodigious scholarly activity, for which I obviously lack the credentials to comment credibly, but about which others much more qualified than I will surely have much to say. World-travelling ecumenist and serious scholar that he was, it was in his more mundane ministry of novice master that I came to know and appreciate him.

The Paulist Fathers' Novitiate was then situated in an ideal location on some 1100 acres of rocks and trees in northern New Jersey, amazingly only 50 or so miles from New York City. It was in this beautiful and contemplative setting that I met Tom on August 24, 1981, as a member of his first novitiate class. Years of seminary study and formation would follow, for which I am grateful; but I remain most grateful for that wonderful year at Oak Ridge, NJ.

Intended to bridge the gap between secular life and religious life, the novitiate under Tom's leadership was meant to be a uniquely intensive experience in which one would not escape from oneself, from others, or from God. Although obviously part of a prolonged process of community socialization and ministerial education, the novitiate was unique in being entirely about the present. It was neither in studying the past nor in preparing for the future, but in learning to live, work, and worship with others that God's will was to be discerned. I learned many things from Tom, from our novitiate community, and from the uniquely evocative atmosphere in which we lived, but above all I learned from Tom patience - patience with an unpredictable and uncontrollable world, patience with my confused and conflicted self, and patience with the God Tom taught me to trust above all.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.

War and Its Children

Today is the 80th anniversary of the British and French Declarations of War against  Germany, Sunday, September 3, 1939, which marked the "official" beginning of World War II in Europe. At a distance of 80 years, the significance of that event for the history of the 20th century still cannot be underestimated. Of course, in a certain sense, the war had already begun almost six months earlier, when Germany had invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, Hitler's first conquest of non-German territory. That definitive shattering of the Munich illusion pushed Britain and France to promise Poland to come to that country's aid if it too were invaded by Germany, an eventuality which became a virtual inevitability after Germany and the Soviet Union shocked the world with their "non-Aggression Pact" on August 23, 1939. Free, for now at least, from the danger of that World War I nightmare, a two-front war, Hitler could safely invade Poland and take a gamble on whether those he derisively called "the men of Munich" would actually attempt to stop him. In fact, they didn't really do anything to stop him in Poland, but they did - after an unconscionable two-day delay - duly declare war on Germany and so set out on the road that eventually led somewhat circuitously to V-E Day, a road no one in 1939 could have foreseen.

The calamitous six years that ensued ended up sucking almost the entire human world into the worst war the world had ever experienced. The United States had helped pave the path for war by first unnecessarily intervening in the previous "Great War" of 1914-1918 and then abandoning to its devices the Europe it had gratuitously thus helped disrupt. Once war was declared, the U.S. played at neutrality for over two years until finally forced into action by Pearl Harbor, emerging at the war's end as the world's most dominant and powerful Power and the promoter of a successful civilizational revival in Europe's western half. That accomplishment was clouded, of course, by the "Cold War," which in a sense prolonged the fragility of the post-war settlement for another half century.

That was the world I grew up in, filled with movies and stories and remembrances of those formed by the experience of World War II - "the Greatest Generation," which, of course, included my parents and virtually all the adult authority figures in my world. Their experience - and how they had interpreted their generation's experience - had formed them to oppose subsequent challenges in whatever way seemed to differentiate them from Chamberlain at Munich. Hence the 1948 Berlin Airlift. Hence the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Hence also Vietnam. As one distinguished American historian warned, way too late,  “historical models acquire a life of their own,” and we may become “bewitched by analogy” (Arthur M. Scheslinger, Jr,. War and the American Presidency, Norton, 2004,  p. 123).

None of that, however, detracts from the greatness of the World War II generation's accomplishment, both in saving Europe and the wider world from one of the 20th-century's greatest scourges and then saving Western Europe and much of the world from the other great 20th-century scourge - in the process building durable social and political and economic alliances that have, on balance, served the world well for almost three-quarters of a century. As King George VI said in his famous speech 80 years ago: For the sake of all that we ourselves hold dear, it is unthinkable that we should refuse to meet the challenge. 

Photo: Britain's King George VI addressed the British Commonwealth and Empire after war was declared on September 3, 1939, the speech immortalized in the 2010 movie "The King's Speech."

The Kingdom of God's Inverted Social Order

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully [Luke 14:1].

Now, what do you suppose they were watching for? Were they like modern journalists or, worse, social media trolls trying to cause trouble? They were so busy observing Jesus, that they apparently didn’t notice how he was watching them, watching how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. They must have been taken aback a bit when Jesus took the opportunity to give them a lesson in manners, in the alternative manners of God’s kingdom.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth [Act 3, Scene 4], when Macbeth welcomes the various lords, he assumes that they all know who ranks where, and so says to them: You know your own degrees; sit down. In an honor-based culture, in a society where one’s social status and rank were of primary importance – and where everyone presumably knew his or her proper place at the table – Macbeth’s assumption was common sense.

Jesus, however, chose instead to offer alternative advice, based on the Old Testament Book of Proverbs: Claim no honor in the king’s presence, nor occupy the place of the great; for its better that you be told, “Come up closer,” than that you be humbled before the prince. [Proverbs 25:6-7] Now I actually know someone who did as Jesus suggested (whether or not that was his intention) – and it worked!

Years ago I was studying abroad when the mayor of a major American city was visiting, and the local mayor held a lunch in his honor, to which someone I knew was invited. As he told the story later, he had wandered into the banquet room and just sat down at a table where there were several empty seats. No one seemed to notice him or pay him any particular attention, until suddenly someone came up to him and said: “Here you are! You’re supposed to be at the head table!” So he followed her to the head table, all the while noticing how the very same people who had not noticed him or paid him any attention a few minutes before were now suddenly very interested in learning who he was!

Knowing him, I suspect his behavior that day came quite naturally. That’s just who he is! Others may be more manipulative, exhibiting an externally humble pose, all the while expecting a contrary compliment from others. What we now fashionably – and somewhat obsessively - call poor self-esteem might motivate some to minimize their accomplishments in the hope of being contradicted by someone who will give them the praise they think they deserve (but are afraid to claim for themselves). This can prove to be a problem, of course, if your poor self-esteem turns out to be accurate, if your humility is not contradicted, if, when you take the lowest place, no one says, “My friend, move up to a higher position.” Most of us, I suspect, might be rather reluctant to risk confirming that we do in fact belong down there in the lowest place. So frightening is that prospect for most of us that, rather than risk it, we willingly spend much of our lives playing the dangerous game of competing constantly for the next higher position.

But the kingdom of God, as Jesus never seems to tire of teaching us, is about the complete reversal of all those ordinary expectations. Jesus told us this parable to help us break through all those obsessions and preoccupations, which stand in our way, inhibiting us from becoming the people God wants us to be.

One of my seminary professors used to say that the problem is not that Jesus is a male but that so few men are like Jesus. The gospel began by telling us that the people were observing Jesus carefully. In some ways, the tragedy of so much of our Church’s history has been how much and how often we as Jesus’ disciples have failed to observe him carefully - and having observed him to imitate him.

False humility may make life a little easier and ease the way for certain interactions to be more successful. But the true humility of Jesus’ disciples has a new and priceless dimension of meaning, since Jesus himself has revealed the humility of God toward us and has invited us to imitate him in that.

Jesus’ advice becomes this challenge for all of us who call ourselves his disciples. Can people look at us and say: “See how differently they do things”?

Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville TN, September 1, 2019.