Zacchaeus

Last week, we heard Jesus tell a parable about a tax collector. In today’s gospel [Luke 19:1-10], he – and we – get to meet the real thing – in the person of Zacchaeus, who was not just any old tax collector, but a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man. Those extra details, being a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, presumably were mentioned to make him seem even less likable, just as his being short in stature, and his undignified behavior in running ahead and climbing a tree presumably were mentioned to highlight his ridiculousness.

However that may be, even without any extra details, knowing nothing else about him besides his being a tax collector, we would still know for certain that he was a sinner. Without knowing anything else, we would know that he collaborated with the Romans - and so was automatically a sinner, because God had given the land of Israel as a permanent covenant with his people forever and so to collaborate with the Romans seemed self-evidently sinful. Everyone understood that.

Sinner or not, Zacchaeus was seeking to see who Jesus was. Just what Jesus meant to him at that stage we have no way of guessing. People have probably always wanted to see celebrities. And Jesus, with his reputation already well established as a successful healer and exorcist, was certainly a celebrity – probably the biggest attraction to hit Jericho in a long time!

Zacchaeus, seeking to see who Jesus was, may have had no more than just a natural curiosity – just as any of us at any particular time may have nay number of natural human motives for coming to church. But, whatever our motives, at least we are here. And so it was with Zachaeus. Whatever his motives for seeking to see who Jesus was, at least they got him there.

And then Jesus himself took over: "Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." Jesus didn’t mull over Zaccaheus’ motives, and he didn’t wait for a proper invitation. He took advantage of the situation and boldy invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house – as he continues now boldly to invite himself into our lives in this house of his Church today.

Traditionally, this gospel was read at the Mass for the dedication of a church – a usage suggested, I suspect, by Jesus’ words: "Today salvation has come to this house." For that indeed is the purpose of a church – why churches are such special places, why we build them, why we dedicate them, and above all why we attend them.

Indeed salvation did come to Zacchaeus’ house that day, when in response to Jesus’ initiative, Zacchaeus received him with joy, boldly turning his own life around (apparently to everyone’s surprise) and demonstrating in the process both the genuineness of his own conversion and also how serious a matter it really is for someone to become a follower of Jesus: "behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over."

Today – and everyday – salvation comes to this house also, this church, to which we come in order to see Jesus, and within which (however imperfect or mixed our motives may sometimes be) Jesus boldly invites himself to stay with us. Here, we too can experience the real change Zacchaeus experienced – doing what we would never otherwise have done, becoming what we would never otherwise have become, a community of forgiven sinners changed by our faith in the One who invites himself to stay with us here in this house today.

Homily at Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, October 31, 2010.

Halloween

Growing up, I loved Halloween. To be honest, I really disliked having to decide who I was going to be for Halloween and what kind of costume I would wear, but once those hurdles were past I loved the holiday itself – the party at school, followed by trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. In those days (The Bronx in the 1950s), kids weren’t afraid to be out, and adults weren’t afraid to open their doors. Most adults gave us candy (which no one was afraid to eat in those days), but some gave money – as much as 25 cents or, in the case of one generous neighbor, the unimaginably large sum of 50 cents! Back then, Halloween was basically a children’s holiday, which adults also enjoyed.

All that has changed, of course. In many places, children’s trick-or-treating has lost its traditional spontaneity and become a choreographed event, supervised by adults and hedged in by fear. Adults, on the other hand, have turned Halloween into a holiday for themselves. (It’s been suggested that my generation of “baby boomers” enjoyed our childhood holiday so much we just don’t want to let go of it). Halloween is now the second most decorated-for holiday in the United States (second only to Christmas). Like Christmas, it is now a full season that begins in stores months beforehand.

Less emphasized, in either the children’s Halloween of the post-war years or the adult extravaganza of today, have been its original significance and its subsequently added layer of Christian religious meaning. November 1 was once the most important of the four seasonal turning points of the ancient Celtic year, the beginning not only of winter but of a new year, the eve of which was imagined as a frightening in-between time when the spirits of the dead might roam about and possibly even try to haunt their old homes. Bonfires and jack-o-lanterns (originally carved out of turnips) were part of the defense of the living against an assault from the other world.

By about the 9th-century A.D., the Roman festival of All Saints was moved from May to November 1 - a kind of Christianization of the old Celtic holiday, and a celebration of the triumph of Christianity over paganism and of Christ’s victory (as exemplified in the saints) over the demonic forces which had hitherto held people in fear. (Hence the name “Halloween,” which means “the eve of All Hallows” - i.e., All Saints).

All Saints Day celebrates the Church Triumphant – all the saints, both known and unknown – who now praise God for ever in heaven. Around the end of the first millennium, as a sort of sequel to All Saints Day, the Church added All Souls Day on November 2, a day devoted to urgent prayer on behalf of all who, having died, are now still being purified of the consequences of their sins.

In the Church’s calendar, both the month of November and the season of Advent, which immediately follows it, have traditionally focused on our end, as an inevitability which we humanly fear, but for which we wait with the hope made possible for us by Christ. How we think and speak about Christian hope regarding the end and the eternal fulfillment of God’s purpose for creation is fundamental for a coherent Christian faith.

At least in the northern hemisphere, thoughts about the end come quite naturally at this time of the year, as the sun rises a little later every morning and sets a little earlier every afternoon. Amidst withered leaves and barren branches, there is a melancholy sense of time passing by as yet another year draws to a close. Science confirms that the universe, as we know it, did not always exist and will not always exist. However distant the day, it is doomed to end. Less distant, there is the individual - but no less definite - death of each one of us. The human condition of alienation from God through sin makes mortality seem the ultimate frustration. Perhaps, that may help to explain modern secular society’s increasing inclination to downplay death, even to the point of failing to provide complete religious funerals for the deceased. In contrast, Christian hope causes one both to treat all of life as a preparation for a good death and not to neglect the duty of prayer for those who have gone before us.

The great autumn triduum of Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls challenges us to face our fears and contemplate the mystery of death – but to do so in faith and hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

15 Years

The Apostle Jude, whom the Western Church honors today (along with Simon the Zealot), is traditionally invoked as the patron of desperate situations, lost causes, and hopeless cases. So it was altogether appropriate that, when I was finally ordained a priest, it happened, 15 years ago today, on the feast of St. Jude.

My 15th year as a priest has been an especially exciting one for me - a time for new and different experiences. Now in Knoxville as pastor of the oldest parish in East Tennessee, I spent the days leading up to my anniversary on my first retreat with the priests of the diocese.

The site for the retreat was a retreat center attached to an Augustinian parish in Maggie Valley, NC, in the Smoky Mountains. It was about a 100-mile drive from downtown Knoxville to Maggie Valley – much of it illuminated by the incredible beauty of the bright autumn colors. The Retreat Center itself is on the side of a hill. Further up the hill is the parish church, where we concelebrated Mass each morning and had Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Confessions on Wednesday night. A true gem of a building on a beautiful site, its clear glass windows open to the grandeur of nature, the church was built by a Detroit businessman, a wealthy widower who was then ordained (at age 80) to minister there. Now it is in the care of the Augustinians, who live in a lovely friary next to the church and serve the parish and the retreat center - the same Augustinian province that staffed my home parish in the Bronx and taught me in High School. Small world! I’d recognize that habit anywhere!

Like diocesan priests, Paulists (defined by the Church as a Clerical Society of Apostolic Life) do most of our ministry in local churches in close collaboration with the local diocesan presbyterate. The retreat director’s repeated emphasis on our need as priests to acquire the skills of spiritual leadership readily resonated with me as a new pastor, particularly aware of the challenges involved in serving as my parish’s new spiritual leader.

A priest has a preeminently public, i.e., ecclesial, identity - rooted not only in the priest’s personal relationship with God but in the priest’s relationship with the people he has been appointed to lead. People need to hear and experience the Good News through the priest’s ministry. Hence the importance of his ability – and limitations – in meeting that need.

A very wise, older Paulist once advised me at a particularly low point in my Paulist life that I would find spiritual fulfillment – and, presumably, holiness - in my experience of ministry. How many times have I repeated that to myself over the years? How many times have I heard it repeated here these past few days?

So now I’ve finished 15 fulfilling years in priesthood. As I begin my 16th year, I can do no better than to make my own the words of the prayers of the Mass for the anniversary of ordination: May I be an ardent but gentle servant of your gospel and your sacraments … May I always live in truth the mysteries I handle at your altar.

A Man of the Church

On this day in 1849, a 29-year old German-American, New York born, convert to Roman Catholicism, Isaac T. Hecker, was ordained a Redemptorist priest at St. Mary’s Church, Clapham, the Redemptorists’ new foundation in London. Sent there to complete his seminary studies, Hecker was part of the first Redemptorist community in London, which at that time included an Austrian, a Russian, and a Belgian.

Hecker’s road to the priesthood had been arduous. Not unlike Christian history’s most famous seeker, Saint Augustine, Hecker’s journey to conversion eloquently exemplifies the spiritual search at its best. Like Augustine, he examined many of the leading intellectual and religious currents of his time, before finally finding his permanent religious home in the Roman Catholic Church. The very personal story of his spiritual search, of his intense attention to his own inner spiritual sense, certainly speak to the spiritual longings of our own spiritually hungry century, with its legions of souls commonly described as “spiritual but not religious.” Hecker too was “spiritual but not religious” for most of the first 25 years of his life. What was – and remains – significant about Hecker, however, was precisely that he did not remain that way. Fundamental to this first period of his life was his recognition of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God acting to call him out of himself and into the Church. For Hecker, seeking was never an end in itself. The point of seeking is finding. Hecker found fulfillment in the Catholic Church and never desired to look farther. Rather, he devoted himself to helping others – especially other seekers, such as he himself had been – to find the truth in the Church.

In 1845, less than a year after his reception into the Church, Hecker met two other new Catholics, James McMaster and Clarence Walworth, both former Episcopalians, who were planning to travel to Europe to enter the Redemptorist novitiate in Belgium. Hecker decided to join them. He took an overnight train to Baltimore, showed up at the Redemptorist house at 4:00 a.m., and met with the Provincial after morning Mass. Having persuaded the Provincial that he knew enough Latin, he was accepted . Taking the morning train back to New York, he said a quick goodbye to his family, and set sail for his new life in Europe.

A week earlier, in a letter to another recent convert, Orestes Brownson, Hecker had expressed “the need of being under stronger Catholic influences than are so far as my experience goes, in this country.” The Redemptorists provided him the immersion experience he felt he needed in European Catholicism, and Hecker adapted enthusiastically to Redemptorist religious routine and ascetical practices. He experienced serious difficulties with his studies, however, what he himself described as a “helpless inactivity of mind in matters of study” that made him “a puzzle” both to himself and to superiors. Convinced that he had a vocation to labor for the conversion of his non-Catholic fellow countrymen, however, he successfully persuaded his superiors that, if left to study at his own pace, he could yet “acquire sufficient knowledge to be ordained a priest.”

So, from Belgium and the Netherlands, he went to England to finish his formation at the Redemptorist house in Clapham, where, on October 23, 1849, he was ordained a priest. In 1851 he was sent back to the United States as part of a new English-speaking, Redemptorist mission band, which included Clarence Walworth and two other American Episcopalian converts to Catholicism, Augustine Hewit and Francis Baker.

Their first mission was at St. Joseph’s in Greenwich Village, New York City – the first ever English-language mission in the United States. Walworth, widely regarded as the nation’s foremost Catholic preacher, and Hewit generally gave the principal mission sermons. Hecker heard confessions and gave the catechetical instructions after morning Mass and also the evening instruction on the rosary, which he delivered with such passion that his colleagues called him “Fr. Mary.”

Parish missions were intended to elevate the spiritual life of the faithful and reconcile back to the sacraments those who had lapsed. By challenging Catholics to a higher standard of moral behavior – for example, by reducing alcohol abuse – missions contributed to what Hecker, in a letter to Brownson, called “a higher tone of Catholic life in our country.” one consequence of which, he hoped, would be to make the Church more attractive to non-Catholics. Apparently, Hecker already understood that any successful mission to non-Catholic America presupposed an effective mission and ministry within the American Catholic community.

While working on the missions Hecker produced two apologetic books, Questions of the Soul (1855) and Aspirations of Nature (1857), “to explain the Catholic religion in such a manner as to reach and attract the minds of the non-Catholics of the American people.” He hoped that “many of the great body of the American people,” if shown the way Divine Providence had led him to the Church, “might in this way be led also to see the truth.” Selling some 3000 copies in 1855, Questions of the Soul established Hecker as one of the leading spokesmen for Roman Catholicism in the United States.

Hecker’s life as a priest was characterized by his enthusiastic embrace of the Church to which the first, searching period of his life had so earnestly led him and to which he now so wholeheartedly devoted himself. This commitment to the Church as the institutional expression of the presence and providential action of the Holy Spirit sustained him in his priestly ministry, despite difficulties. His expulsion from the Redemptorists in 1857 (which eventually led to his founding the Paulist Fathers in 1858) was “the source of the deepest affliction” to him, but he believed “that these things were permitted by Divine Providence” to position him “to further the work of God.” He was truly, as New York’s Edward Cardinal Egan wrote (Catholic New York, November 9, 2006), “a man of the Church.”

Blessed Kaiser Karl and a Century That Needn't Have Been

Yesterday, October 21, is the date assigned (in certain places) in the Church’s calendar to remember Blessed Kaiser Karl (1887-1922), Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary (1916-1918). The date chosen for his feast is the anniversary of his marriage in 1911 to the Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, to whom he said on the day after their wedding: "Now, we must help each other to get to Heaven." (October 21 also happens to be the anniversary of the beginning of his second failed attempt to regain his Hungarian throne in 1921).

His manifest sanctity aside, the commemoration of the last reigning Hapsburg Emperor is also a sad reminder of Europe’s tragic history throughout the 20th century - dominated by what some have called Europe’s long civil war, which began in 1914 and lingers where and how it began, in the still unresolved conflicts between Serbs and others in the Balkans. (Today’s New York Times contains a timely reminder of Serbia’s continued, conflicted history in an article about how Europe’s most wanted war-crimes suspect, Ratko Mladic, remains at large.

One of my undergraduate college professors, himself a refugee from one of the successor states of the Hapsburg Empire, liked to point out what a natural economic unit the Empire on the Danube had been – and what an unmitigated disaster the history of the region had been since the dissolution of that Empire. What was supposedly said about Poland at the end of World War II – that the Poles had had the bad fortune to lose the war twice (first to the Germans in 1939, then to the Soviets in 1945) – was in effect true of most of the Empire’s successor states, whichever side they were on in World War II, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the formerly Hapsburg lands that were subsequently absorbed into Yugoslavia (Croatia, Slovena, Bosnia).

When I was in Prague several years ago, our tour group attended some outdoor event one evening. Looking around, I asked our guide if the outdoor theater had been built in the Communist time. “Of course,” she responded. “No self-respecting Hapsburg would have allowed anything so ugly to be built!” That sort of summarizes both the tragic destruction of the Hapsburg Empire (for which the US and especially Woodrow Wilson must bear some share of the blame) and the soul-destroying alternatives Central Europe was saddled with in its place. After much of a century spent in unprecedented blood-letting and “cold war” division, Europe is now physically at peace (sort of) but sadly seems increasingly bereft of anything resembling its soul.