“Per ensis ille, hic per crucis …”

According to venerable ancient tradition, the city of Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC, by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, whose father was Mars, the god of war. Abandoned as infants, they had been nursed by a wolf in a grotto beneath Rome’s Palatine Hill. It is said that the two argued about which hill to build on – Romulus preferring the Palatine and Remus the Aventine. In any case, when Romulus began building his city wall on his hill, Remus ridiculed his brother’s work and then ominously jumped over the wall, thus belittling his brother’s accomplishment. Romulus responded by killing him - thus guaranteeing which one of them Rome would be named after! In time, of course, Rome would become the greatest city in the world, the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever yet known.

To that same city, some 8 centuries after its 1st king’s murder of his brother, came two men, Peter and Paul, brothers not by blood, but by their common faith in Jesus Christ, who had called them to be apostles. The Christian community they found in Rome was small, socially and politically insignificant - an easy target when the Emperor Nero needed scapegoats to blame for a destructive fire in the year A.D. 64. Among those who gave their lives as witnesses to the Christian faith in that 1st Roman persecution of the Church were the apostles Peter and Paul.
Presumably Peter and Paul could have found ways to avoid martyrdom. Many others did, after all. One famous story recounts how Peter could have fled to safety but returned to Rome and embraced his martyrdom after meeting Jesus on the road. “Lord, where are you going,” Peter had asked. “I am going to Rome to be crucified again,” Jesus responded.

If the small, threatened Christian community of Rome required encouragement and confidence to persevere in their new faith, what more powerful reinforcement could they have had than the witness offered by the martyrdom of those two illustrious apostles - Peter, crucified on the Vatican Hill, and Paul, beheaded on the Ostian Way - who were the Church’s link back to the Risen Lord himself!

In the words of the ancient 5th century hymn - Decora lux aeternitatis auream (ascribed to Elpis, wife of the philosopher Boethius) – which is sung on this annual solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul: Founders of Rome, they bind the world in loyalty; One by the sword achieved, one by the cross his fate; With laurelled brows they hold eternal royalty.

The old Rome, which Romulus had founded – powerful pagan Rome – founded on the murder of one brother by another, was, for all its grandeur, a human city like any other, a warring conqueror city to be conquered in turn by other warring conquerors. The new Christian Rome of Peter and Paul ultimately conquered the old Rome, but in a new way. The powerful pagan Rome, founded on the murder of one brother by another, was itself conquered by the faith that empowered the brothers-in-Christ to die together as witnesses to a new way of life.

This feast of Saints Peter and Paul is, not surprisingly, celebrated with greatest solemnity in Rome itself, where 2 famous churches - St. Peter’s Basilica and the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls - rise above their tombs. On this feast, newly appointed metropolitan archbishops receive from the Successor of St. Peter the pallium, a band of lamb’s wool, blessed in January and placed on St. Peter’s tomb, before being conferred as “a symbol of unity and a sign of communion with the Apostolic See, a bond of love, and an incentive to courage” (Ceremonial of Bishops, #1154). This year, three American archbishops will be among the group receiving the pallium – the new archbishops of Cincinnati. Miami, and Milwaukee.

As we celebrate this day made holy for us by the mission and martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, let us also, as St. Augustine once said on this occasion (Sermon 295), “embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”

"Let the dead bury their dead."

“Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60).

Nowadays, when originally non-Christian practices like cremation compete in popularity with traditional Christian burial, and after-the-fact “memorial services” often replace real funerals, Jesus’ words might not seem quite so shocking as they must certainly have seemed to people in Jesus’ time. In the ancient world, being properly buried was something people worried a lot about, and giving people – particularly one’s relatives – a proper burial was an absolute, not-to-be-neglected, social and religious responsibility. Possibly one of the most moving episodes in all of ancient literature occurs in Homer’s Iliad when King Priam of Troy sneaks into the enemy Greek camp to beg Achilles to give him the body of the hero Hector, so Priam can give his dead son a proper funeral. Certainly Jesus’ startling words, “Let the dead bury their dead,” must have been incredibly shocking to his hearers – and one hopes that they may still sound shocking even to our modern ears.

In contrast to Jesus, Elijah’s treatment of Elisha in today’s 1st reading (1 Kings 19: 16b, 19-21) certainly appears much more moderate, sensitive, and humane - to our way of thinking. Having thrown his cloak over Elisha, ritually designating him as his successor, Elijah was willing nonetheless to allow him sufficient time to provide properly for his family and his employees. Jesus, at least in this instance, certainly seems much less patient.

In pleading, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father,” the would-be-disciple seems to have been saying to Jesus: “I’ll be quite happy to follow you – but on my own schedule, when my life is all in order and all my affairs have been settled - someday, but not quite yet” (an earlier version of Saint Augustine’s so often quoted 4th-century prayer, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet”).

The problem with that, whether for the would-be disciple or anyone else, is that things don’t always go according to plan. Who knows when, if ever, one’s life will be in order? Who knows when, if ever, one will finally be ready? But God’s call comes when God calls – whether we are ready to respond or not. It’s not our timing that counts but God’s time. Jesus’ shockingly over-the-top statement means that this is the moment and now is the time to respond. God’s time is now. God’s call, when and how it comes, is always now – always in the present, pointing us forward, never looking backward.

That's all easier said than done, of course. Even Jesus’ closest disciples seemed more intent on looking back rather than ahead. Witness their preoccupation with the old quarrel with the Samaritans! Jesus, of course, understood the power of the past, its hold on us, the way it constrains us. But he was free enough to live in the present and for the future, and he wanted his disciples to do the same.

Looking back to what was left behind risks turning one in upon oneself. But becoming a disciple involves getting outside of oneself. Living in the present pushes us forward to the future – free for the fullest possible involvement in God’s great plan for the salvation of the world.

Jesus in the Gospel resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem. That he wanted us to understand how demanding and challenging that journey must be is clear from the answers he gave to those who half-heartedly thought they might like to come along. The demand of discipleship is the challenge to look to Jesus alone and not to what was left behind.

For freedom Christ set us free, said Saint Paul (Galatians 5:1). We are invited to live in that new kind of freedom, free to place ourselves in the service of God’s great plan for the world – by reducing our emotional dependence on all those things that keep us stuck in ourselves, all those things that we have allowed ourselves to become so dependent upon, so anxious about, and which inhibit us from moving ahead. We just can’t look back and move ahead at the same time. We have to choose –between whatever is holding us back and frightening us and the freedom to follow into the future with Jesus.

Homily at Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NYC, June 27, 2010.

Lessons from the Holocaust Museum

I concluded my sightseeing in Washington, DC, today with a visit to the Holocaust Museum. I had been there previously (more than once in fact), but it is always worth another visit.

Observing the widespread ignorance among so many young people about the Second World War, it occurred to me that the Holocaust Museum needs to be complemented by a really good War Museum. (Think London's Imperial War Museum!) Not only would that be desirable in its own terms, it would also better situate the Holocaust (and other tragedies of the 20th century) in their historical context. The Holocaust, after all, in its final and deadliest manifestations, was itself to some extent a consequence of the war (specifically the German conquest of Poland and parts of Russia, etc, with large Jewish populations) and only ended finally as one of the benefits flowing from the total victory of the Allies and the unconditional surrender of Germany.

That point aside, I was really struck this time by how, in hammering home the issue of the refusal of others to take in Jewish refugees, the museum's presentation effectively makes a connection with the larger dimensions of the constant back-and-forth in the American psyche about new immigrants being welcomed - or not - to this land of immigrants. Of course, open immigration would probably not have saved those in eastern Europe who came under German control only after the war had begun, but it would certainly have helped many German and Austrian Jews to escape before the war actually broke out. Whatever conclusions one ends up drawing about immigration policy today, the museum does help highlight the perennial neuralgic character of this issue - and the disastrous human toll bad immigration policies have produced.

Of course, the ultimate lesson of the Holocaust for citizens and statesmen today must be a perpetual vigilance against the enemies of the Jewish people - whether those who would actually push Israel into the Sea, if only they had the actual means at hand to do so, or those who either malevolently or misguidedly offer them aid and comfort.

Discovering Fr. Kino

I'm taking some much needed vacation time this week in Washington, DC, sightseeing with my sister and brother-in-law and my 2 nieces. The heat is oppressively unrelenting. It's much worse than New York, because in New York the tall buildings always provide some shade. Here the uniformly low buildings mean almost no shade at all! In spite of all that, it's great spending time with my family and reconnecting with the major sites of this city where I spent 4 productive seminary years a quarter of a century ago. (Saying it that way really makes it sounds long ago, doesn't it?)

Yesterday, we did the US Capitol tour. I had been there before, of course - the first time in 1961! But there is always something new to be learned, and in any case this was my first visit to the new US Capitol Visitors' Center, which is really very nice (once one gets inside).

The Visitors Center has some of the overflow statues from Statuary Hall. Sometime after the House of Representatives moved out of its original chamber, off from the Rotunda, and into its current quarters, the chamber it had outgrown was converted into National Statuary Hall. Each state was invited to send 2 statues. It has taken quite a long time for all the states to send in their statues. Meanwhile, the growth in the number of states guaranteed that the orignal House Chamber would be too small for its new purpose as well. So statues are now all over the place in the Capitol - and now in the new Visitors' Center as well.

To make a long story short, I had until yesterday believed that there were only 2 Catholic priests in Statuary Hall collection - Bl. Junipero Serra from California and St. Damien from Hawaii. (Needless to say, 2 out of 100 - 2% - would still be an impressive representation!) So it as quite a surprise to discover a third Catholic priest who has received this special honor - the Jesuit missionary Eusebio FranciscoKino (1645-1711) representing the state of Arizona.

Born in northern Italy (in what were then Hapsburg domains), Kino (the German form of Chino) was a Jesuit missionary in Mexico, including the territory which is today Arizona. The base of the statue calls him "Apostle of the Indians," which no doubt summarizes what he would probably have considered his most important accomplishments, although he also apparently had other secular accomplishments as well.

In these days, when the forces of post-modernity are determined to secularize American society, and aspire to rewrite American history to reflect their secularizing bias, it is good to be reminded of the prominent part played by missionaries in the early history of this country and of the essential role of Christianity (and in particular Roman Catholicism) at all stages in our national history.

(Obviously, the photo above is not Fr. Kino, nor even from the Capitol, nor even from yesterday! That's my sister and I posing in front of the North entrance of the White House!)

Reflections on a Royal Wedding

On this centennial Fathers Day, a cheer or two to the future Queen of Sweden, the Crown princess Victoria, for walking down the aisle at her Stockholm wedding yesterday, escorted by her father, King Carl XVI Gustaf. It seems that in ultra-liberal, post-modern Sweden, her action was somewhat controversial. Apparently, even the Lutheran Archbishop who performed the service had earlier rebuked the Princess!

Current custom in Sweden (so I’m told) is for the bride and the groom to walk in together. To be totally honest, personally, I don’t really care all that much how people get down the aisle. For me, what happens at the altar is what matters, although I aprreciate that for many attendees at a wedding the bridal procession may be what they most want to see.

On the other hand, the symbolism of the separate entrances of the bride and the groom - and their corresponding departure together (as in the picture) - does speak effectively to how marriage creates a new family unit from previously separate ones. To whatever extent such traditional rituals reflect the reality we purport to be celebrating, they are an enrichment to the event, and perhaps need to be treasured more than we contemporaries are in the habit of doing.

In its 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Second Vatican Council approvingly cited these words from an earlier, 16th-century reforming council, the Council of Trent: “If any regions use other praiseworthy customs and ceremonies when celebrating the sacrament of Matrimony, the sacred Synod earnestly desires that these by all means be retained.”