The Political Clown Factor

It's easy to dismiss Donald Trump as some kind of celebrity clown candidate.  Last Friday, Huffington Post even demoted coverage of his "campaign" to its entertainment section. And, of course, there can be said to be a clownish component to his "campaign." It is easy to dismiss it all as American celebrity culture run riot - someone monopolizing media attention not because he is in any sense a serious candidate (let alone a serious statesman), but simply because he is rich and famous in a society that worships wealth and fame.

All that may be true enough. But there is more to this sad story than just the clown factor. For one thing, while wealth and fame account for his ability to play the role he has chosen to ply, the fact remains that he is playing it on a clown-filled stage. His presence and popularity in his party is a testament to so much of what is so wrong in his party's politics.

His bizarre attack on Senator John McCain seems to have galvanized opposition and emboldened his opponents to attack back (many of whom had hitherto been too afraid to take him on directly for his other outlandish attacks). It says something about his party's politics that this is what it took - not the earlier attacks on immigrants or even the earlier indulging of the "Birther" movement, either of which should have been sufficient to disqualify a candidate from serious consideration by serious people. If now his party and its upcoming debates are to be tainted by their association with this candidacy, is it not a clear case of reaping what that same party has sown in recent years?

On one of the Sunday morning talk shows, somebody noted that Trump got more negative comments at the event in question for the seemingly frivolous way he spoke about going to Communion and about his marriages. If that is so, it certainly deserves a lot more attention. On the one hand, it highlights the candidate's complex history (which, for now, New Yorkers may be much more familiar with than the rest of the country) and how that logically might be expected to impact an ostensibly conservative religious constituency. On the other hand, it highlights how unproblematic the hateful attack on McCain may actually seem for some elements in that strange constituency. 

All of which highlights how destructive that party's approach to politics over the past several decades has ultimately been for political sanity, a civil society, and any long-term prospects for statesmanlike governance.

What To Take on the Journey

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey … no food, no sack, no money in their belts.

Whenever I travel anywhere – whether for work or, as this week, for vacation – I worry whether I‘ve packed enough or too much. I always worry about leaving something behind that I’m going to need. And often that exactly what happens! But, in the meantime, my worrying has caused me to carry a whole lot of extra stuff as well! And, of course, as anyone who has ever travelled anywhere knows all too well, the amount of baggage we bring actually tends to increase along the way. Not only do I usually start with too much; I frequently finish with even more!

Of course, this is the kind of problem that can only arise in a world, in a society, where people have a lot of possessions to begin with  - an awful lot of stuff, too much, maybe.

On the other hand, in this particular passage, which we just heard [Mark 6:7-13], Jesus wasn’t really talking about our ordinary relationship with possessions. This was not some ordinary trip, let alone a vacation, that the apostles were going on. What it was actually was a kind of practice-run for the apostles’ future job as full-time missionaries. And, unlike my vacation this week, the mission of the Church, which was what the apostles were being prepped for, is never finished (at least not in this life). Hence the command to travel light, lest the constantly accumulating baggage weigh down the kingdom of God and get in the kingdom’s way as it moves out into our world.

Of course, even Jesus let his apostles have some things. He allowed them a walking stick and sandals. I suppose those were considered essentials at that time. On the other hand, the command to take nothing else seems to stress the special nature of the journey – its urgency and importance, allowing no time for distractions and requiring complete commitment, as well as a whole lot of trust in who was sending them. Jesus seemed to be leading the 12 into what I like to call a kind of guided insecurity, sending them out as missionaries, without most of the props they would have been familiar with and normally might have depended on.

Well that was about them then. What about us now? After all, we are all part of this new kingdom of God that the apostles were appointed to proclaim. Of course, we are not all – or even most of us – called to be missionaries like them.  But we are being challenged to adopt the kingdom of God as our standard for how to live. And so what does that say about our relationship with things? For all of us, then, this Gospel is a kind of proverbial “shot across the bow” about our relationship with things.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Pope Francis’ much anticipated encyclical Laudato Si’ On the Care of Our Common Home. As is often the case with such papal pronouncements, it’s somewhat long and requires some patience to read and assimilate its message. But it is well worth the effort.

The encyclical addresses important scientific, economic, political, and cultural concerns, but the heart of its message is spiritual – a call to each and every one of us to true religious conversion, a conversion that challenges us to rethink the way we relate to things in this consumer culture that we are all a part of.

“The emptier a person’s heart is,” Pope Francis warns, “the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume” [204]. But, he continues, "We are always capable of going out of ourselves towards the other. Unless we do this,” he warns, “other creatures will not be recognized for their true worth; we are unconcerned about caring for things for the sake of others; we fail to set limits on ourselves in order to avoid the suffering of others or the deterioration of our surroundings. Disinterested concern for others, and the rejection of every form of self-centeredness and self-absorption, are essential if we truly wish to care for our brothers and sisters and for the natural environment" [208].

Obviously, no one – not even an apostle - ever wants to start out on a trip with insufficient supplies. The point, of course, is not the things themselves. If we just focus on which things we need to shed, then the things are still driving the discussion as surely as if we were carrying them all around with us. The primary point, rather, is to unburden ourselves, both inside and out, so as to free ourselves to become the people God is calling us to be – not the person all the commercials and ads want to be, but the person God is calling me to be.

Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Saint Anne's Church, Walnut Creek, CA, July 12, 2015.

Connecting with "a new and different world"

"Practices and expectations that belong to an idea of 'Christendom' that is for practical purposes anachronistic make the assimilation of new members coming from a new and different world effectively impossible." So wrote the 20th-century Dominican theologian who was so influential at Vatican II, Yves Congar (1904-1995), some 65 years ago in his still relevant classic True and False Reform in the Church.

Of course, Congar's concern was hardly new. Isaac Hecker (1819-1888), who founded the Paulist Fathers 157 years ago this month, was preoccupied with how to convert America to Catholicism by presenting Catholicism to an American audience in as accessible and as un-foreign seeming a manner as possible. For Hecker, the Church's potential "new members coming from a new and different world" were Americans, predominantly "Yankee" in culture, socialized in the mores of democratic republican citizenship. Ultimately, Hecker's and Congar's concern was one that itself goes all the way back to the Acts of the Apostles and the controversies that culminated in Acts 15 in the Council of Jerusalem. In Acts, the Church's potential "new members coming from a new and different world" were Gentiles, socialized in the mores of Hellenistic paganism." It was the success of that initial effort that providentially made it possible for a small Jewish sect to grow into a multi-cultural world religion. 

The common thread through all these arguments and authors is precisely the evangelizing imperative to assimilate "new members coming from a new and different world." Evangelization is, after all, a Blessed Pope Paul VI famously proclaimed in Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) the essential mission of the Church.

The challenge, of course, is to discern what, at any time and place in the Church's historical journey, belongs to an anachronistic superstructure that needs to be rethought and reformed in order to assimilate those "new members coming from a new and different world." That, in turn, presupposes appreciating what constitutes that "new and different world." To reach out, for example, to today's "nones," an evangelizing Church must come to comprehend their world, such as it is, with all its proverbial joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 1).

Of course, the wider world may well determine for itself what  "practices and expectations" it deems anachronistic remnants of an idea "Christendom" it is in the process of replacing.

In some respects, some of what constitutes the so-called "culture wars" in contemporary Western societies (especially in the United States) may be about what social and legal "practices and expectations" are remnants of an older "Christendom" that no longer corresponds to contemporary cultural understanding of society and law - and about how the Church adapts itself to the loss of those once widely agreed upon "practices and expectations." It would seem that the perennial evangelizing imperative to facilitate "the assimilation of new members coming from a new and different world" should dictate the substance and style of that response. 

I Promessi Sposi

While in New York on vacation after last week's Paulist community retreat, I was invited to be the Guest Discussion Leader at Saint Paul the Apostle parish's monthly Great Catholic Fiction Book Discussion Group (a group which I used to be very involved with back when I was on the parish staff there more than 5 years ago). July's book was The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873). The Betrothed is an enduring classic of modern Italian literature, standard reading in Italian high schools. Its literary merits aside, its special significance today and the obvious reason it was chosen for the group is the influence it had on the young Jorge Bergoglio, when the future Pope was growing up in an Italian immigrant milieu in Argentina. Pope Francis says he has read it three times and recalls how, when he was a child, his grandmother Rosa had him memorize the novel’s famous opening sentence, that begins Quel ramo del lago di Como ...

I have to confess that, for all its historic and literary significance, it is a book I had not only never read but had never known anything about before. But its influence on the Pope naturally made me interested in reading it now. 

At a recent General Audience, Pope Francis recommended the novel to engaged couples to read before marriage. So I began the discussion by asking the group what they thought of that recommendation! Set in the Spanish-ruled Duchy of Milan in 1628, the novel is a tale of romantic love between two young "betrothed,"  a skilled silk worker and a peasant girl from the same village (Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella), whose marriage plans have been frustrated by a malevolent nobleman (Don Rodrigo) and their excessively prudent, i.e., cowardly, parish priest (Don Abbondio). The novel follows Renzo and Lucia's commitment to one another through the many twist and turns that separately take them through a serious of problematic and dangerous situations until they are eventually reunited and finally joined in marriage by the same Don Abbondio. In the meantime, we experience the macro-story of war, famine, and plague and the micro-stories of a number of major and minor characters - among them , in particular, a holy Capuchin (Fra Cristoforo) and a virtuous Cardinal (Federigo Borromeo, a real historical personage and relative of his predecessor in the see of Milan, Saint Charles Borromeo), both of whom embody and model a type of churchman very different from the conventional time-serving, down-to-earth Don Abbondio and the aristocratic nun who never really had a vocation (La Monaca did Monza). In addition to lecturing Don Abbondio on his pastoral responsibilities, Cardinal Borromeo is also instrumental in the transformation of L'Innominato, and "unnamed" thuggish minor noble (based on the historical figure Francesco Bernerdino Visconti), whose spiritual conversion marks the key turning point in the story. Both the cultivated Cardinal Borromeo and the Capuchin Fra Cristoforo represent the priesthood as a holy and fulfilling vocation lived in service of God's people. It is easy to recognize in their behavior and in that of the various other virtuous characters (mostly ordinary people) important motifs in Pope Francis' approach to priesthood and his preoccupation with those on the peripheries - as well as his theme of the Church as a "Field Hospital" in the novel's vivid description of the Milanese lazzaretto, in which the victims and survivors of Milan's Plague of 1630 were housed and ministered to by the likes of Fra Christoforo

Finally, to assist the reader who has successfully navigated the novel's 700+ pages, the devout Catholic author succinctly summarized the moral of the story in the book's final sentence: "that misfortunes most commonly happen to us form our own misconduct or imprudence; but sometimes from causes independent of ourselves; that the most innocent and prudent conduct cannot always preserve us from them; and that, whether they arise from our own fault or not, trust in God softens them, and renders them useful in preparing us for a better life. Although this as said by poor peasants, it appears to us so just, that we offer it here as the moral of our story."

Amen!

Missing Out

Like Jesus in today’s gospel [Mark 6:1-6a], I’m preaching to my hometown crowd today. Hopefully, I won’t get run out of town and threatened with violence, as Jesus was in Luke’s version of this event!

Even in Mark’s less threatening-sounding account, which we just heard, it’s still such a sad story. Jesus the famous miracle-worker comes home, and his neighbors take offense at him - missing out on a chance to experience his mighty deeds, missing out on more than that, missing out on the whole point of Jesus entirely. 

Some people, as Israeli Defense Minister Abba Eban once famously said, “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

We easily miss things that are staring us in the face. Consider, for example, Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, which has deservedly gotten so much attention. It's a rousing call for religious conversion in the face of the spiritual problem at the root of environmental degradation and evident climate change. But the symptoms - scientific, economic, and political - have been obvious for a long time – just not being noticed or not being paid attention to.

Anyway, what happened to Jesus in today’s gospel is something that happens all the time. Someone we have known forever – a family member, a childhood friend, an old school classmate – has suddenly become somewhat successful. And how do we react? Do we join in the general acclaim? Or do we remember – and remind anyone who will listen – that we knew him or her way back when, when he was still just one of us, just an ordinary nobody? Just who does he think he is anyway, putting on airs now and expecting us to treat him like somebody?

Now, maybe that doesn’t happen all the time, in every single case. Human behavior being what it is, however, and jealousy and envy being the powerful emotional engines that they are, it certainly happens often enough. So, instead of rejoicing in what someone we know has accomplished, we’re likely to be jealous and envious. And, if the opportunity presents itself, the default response may be to denigrate and belittle. So we miss the real opportunity.

So this unhappy - and somewhat uninspiring – episode from Jesus’ life largely rings true, I think, as an example of human behavior in any time or place!

It may also serve as a metaphor for something similar that can easily happen not just in our ordinary relationships with one another, but also in our relationship with God. It’s probably yet another human tendency to seek “spiritual” experience in whatever is different, strange, exotic – and new. Just visit your local bookstore and check out the “Spirituality” section – that is, if there are any bookstores left! (When I was stationed here there were three big ones in very short walking distance). But, anyway, if you visit a bookstore or go online or whatever, it’s amazing, actually, the sheer quantity and variety of options available for the so-called spiritual “seeker.” Even seriously committed, believing, practicing, Christians can be tempted by this apparently desire for extraordinary, exotic experiences, as for example some 1st-century Corinthians were. Witness Saint Paul’s plight in today’s 2nd reading [2 Corinthians 12:7-10]. Paul had to defend himself (and his authority) against other would-be “teachers,” who based their authority on an abundance of extraordinary revelations. In his defense, Paul challenged the claims of his rivals, claiming he had had exotic experiences at least as good and maybe better. But (and much more importantly) he explained how his own personal experience had taught him to put all such special stuff in proper perspective – teaching him to value not his own accomplishments, but the power of Christ at work in his life.

For much of the first 25 years of his life, Isaac Hecker, who founded the Paulist Fathers 157 years ago this week (and who is buried over in that corner), was what we would nowadays call a spiritual “seeker.” For Hecker, however, seeking was never an end in itself. The point of seeking is finding. Hecker found fulfillment in the Catholic Church and he never desired or felt a need to look farther. Along the way, he examined as many as possible of the leading intellectual and religious currents of his time, before finally finding his permanent religious home in the Roman Catholic Church. Like so many of our contemporaries, Hecker could be described as “spiritual but not religious” for much of the first 25 years of his life. But what was so significant about Hecker’s years of searching, of being “spiritual but not religious,” was precisely that he did not remain that way.

The point of the Gospel – what in fact actually makes it “good news” – is that the real seeking and searching has already been done – not by us, but for us, not by us, but by God, God who has found us in his Son, in whom he has become one of us like us in all things but sin, so that he might love in us what he loved in his Son [Sunday Preface VII].

“Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” Jesus’ neighbors at Nazareth knew him and his otherwise ordinary family all too well – too well, tragically to open up their hearts and minds to what God was really doing for them right then and there. The sad result for them was that they got exactly what they were expecting – nothing! No mighty deed took place in their presence. Let’s not make the same mistake ourselves!

Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, NY,

July 5, 2015