Bottled Messages

The Word Among Us folks know me:

Be vigilant at all times.… Your redemption is at hand. (Luke 21:36, 28)

So begins another Advent—with words of warning to stay alert, but also with words of confident reassurance. Isn’t it funny how we are so quick to focus on the verses that sound threatening but lose sight of the ones that remind us how faithful God is and how deeply committed he is to us?

Reminds me of the line “Monarch of all things, fit us for your mansions.” This from the morning prayer hymn struck me with force. Instead of focusing on “fit us” as I usually do, with the negative connotation it invokes of having to change, be painfully molded, to be more disciplined and loving, I focused on the clause “for your mansions”. It would seem the heart of contradiction: “hurt us to help us.” He chastens or disciplines us only so he can give us more.  The irony is now not lost: he wants to give us future mansions, not pointlessly take away our today-pleasures.

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It seems a cautionary tale that one of Jesus's greatest gifts, the Eucharist, would be rejected by perhaps half of Christendom (in the sense of being downgraded to mere symbol, mere ritual, a reenactment as if it's a play remembering the Last Supper). This tendency seems a symbol, no pun intended, of our willingness and even eagerness to settle for less and to underestimate God's love and attention.

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The fourth sorrowful Mystery has always been slightly mysterious to me, that of Jesus needing help carrying his cross. Why? Some say simply because otherwise he would've died on the way is certainly likely given how brief he lived on the cross. But there's got to be more. The lesson taken from one source:

"In this Simon represents all of us. As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we should all help Jesus to carry His Cross. This is the one sure sign that we belong to Christ - that we carry our cross with Him." (From Mysteries of the Rosary by Blessed Columba Marmion)

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 “Let us all therefore love one another in harmony, and let no one look on his neighbor according to the flesh, but in Christ Jesus.” -St Ignatius of Antioch

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Then and Now

Wonder came in sealed bottles
sea-tossed by strangers
from faraway coasts.

Now, like chatter, it's cheap
gratis undersea cables.

Does wonder cease with too much proximity?
Does God hold himself at bay for our sake?

Sympathy for the (Modern) Devil

"Doctrine" and "dogma" are dirty words these days, having fallen into greater disrepute than the gal with the plunging neckline and the micro-skirt in the bad part of town. We've come a long way from when rejoicing Christians greeted the bishops of the 5th century after the latter determined that Mary was indeed the Theotokos, the Mother of God. Even some Catholics are doctrinal-allergic, either because of a weariness with apologetics, fear of division, or simply out of anger at those, like Fr. Corapi, who offered vinegary speech while failing to live up to it. (Hey, hypocrites are people too! And how did Corapi attract such a large crowd if offering vinegar?)

It's like shooting fish in the barrel, talking about how bad, old doctrines get in the way of a relationship with Christ, or that it's better to be "spiritual rather than religious." It's really a shame because many doctrines are quite beautiful, in addition to being true. There's the surety, for example, of the sacraments.

Truth, though, has a hard row to hoe and surely always had. Beauty, it's said, will save the world, a slippery concept perhaps. Pretty pictures? (Mark Doty wrote a poem titled Theories of Beauty.)

And so with that parenthetical, I'll quit pontificating.

On Good Authority...

Some are quite worked up over the new words to the Mass, in particular the infamous "for many" in the words of consecration. I'm not fond of the changes, but the pedigree for using the new translation seems astonishingly good; here's the persuasive way our bishop explains it:

                     

And the Orthodox use "many" as well.

The Magdalene's Pining

Mass last Friday was the great feast of Mary Magdalene and I appreciated anew how she was given the privilege of being the first to see the Risen Christ. It's interesting he would go to her first, as if rewarding her for her great love. I felt a tinge of envy since I wished I loved Him like that! I was also moved by the first reading, from the Song of Songs, even though it was an alternate reading not chosen and so I read it on my own. The great Fr. C was there, as he'd been all week (I could do with having heard more of his sermons). He spoke today about how she was the apostle to the apostles and how we all want to experience God in a completely scientific way when we really have to have a participatory knowledge of God. Faith first.

How well the Song of Songs (3:1-4) passage applies to Mary Magdalene and how even the alternative first reading could be seen to apply (from 2 Cor): "even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." Stop clinging to me, Jesus said, wanting her to know Christ not just in the flesh but in his new creation. A previous pastor once said that you could read "flesh" in St. Paul's writings as "the culture" and so I wonder if sometimes I likewise try to read Jesus according to the flesh, either my culture or his, when he and we are now a new creation.

But how beautiful that Song of Songs passage about leaving her room to look for him, finding a watchman instead and then immediately finding Him. How like that it is to Mary Magdalene's story of leaving to look for him, finding a gardener instead and then seeing Him. Seems like the Byzantines lack this very clever structure coupling of OT/NT readings.

On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves-
I sought him but I did not find him.

I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him.

The watchmen came upon me
as they made their rounds of the city:
Have you seen him whom my heart loves?

I had hardly left them
when I found him whom my heart loves.