Sing, And Walk Onwards

My pastoral duties this past week, along with those looming in the week ahead, have combined to deliver quite a walloping blow to my energies, and particularly my creative energies. So... blogging will be sparse in the days ahead, barring a sudden surge of renewed vim on that front (which is not exactly unheard of with me).

I didn't want the Church year to end, though, without a word from my favourite father of the Church in one of his finest sermons. It is the Office of Readings for today, and so here it is: St. Augustine on the perseverance of the Christian in the world as we await the world to come:

Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we are still anxious and worrying, so that we may one day be able to sing it there in heaven, without any worry or care. Why anxious and worrying here? You must want me to be anxious, Lord, when I read, Is not man’s life on earth a trial and a temptation?  

You must want me to worry when temptation is so plentiful that the Prayer itself tells us to worry, when we say, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. Every day we are petitioners, every day we are trespassers. Do you want me to throw care to the winds, Lord, when every day I am requesting pardon for sins and assistance against dangers? 

After all, when I have said, because of past sins, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us, I must immediately go on to add, because of future dangers, Lead us not into temptation. And how can a people be in a good way, when they cry out with me, Deliver us from evil? And yet, my brethren, in this time that is still evil, let us sing alleluia to the good God, who does deliver us from evil. 

Even here, among the dangers, among the trials and temptations of this life, both by others and by ourselves let alleluia be sung. God is faithful, he says, and he will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able to endure. So even here let us sing alleluia. Man is still a defendant on trial, but God is faithful.  

He did not say “he will not permit you to be tempted” but he will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able to endure; and with the temptation he will also make a way out, so that you may be able to endure it. You have entered into temptation; but God will also make a way out so that you do not perish in the temptation; so that like a potter’s jar you may be shaped by the preaching and fired into strength by the tribulation. But when you enter the temptation, bear in mind the way out: because God is faithful, God will watch over you and guard your going in and your coming out.

Furthermore, when this body has become immortal and imperishable, when all temptation has been done away with; because the body is dead – why is it dead? – Because of sin. But the spirit is life, because of justice. So do we leave the body dead, then? No, but listen: But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells within you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies. So you see: now the body receives its life from the soul, but then it will receive it from the Spirit. 

O! what a happy alleluia there, how carefree, how safe from all opposition, where nobody will be an enemy, where no-one will ever cease to be a friend! God’s praises sung there, sung here – here, by the anxious; there, by the carefree – here, by those who will die; there, by those who will live for ever – here, in hope; there, in reality – here, on our journey; there, in our homeland.

So now, my brethren, let us sing, not to delight our leisure, but to ease our toil. In the way that travellers are in the habit of singing, sing, but keep on walking. What does it mean, “keep on walking”? Go onward always – but go onward in goodness, for there are, according to the Apostle, some people who go ever onward from bad to worse. If you are going onward, you are walking; but always go onward in goodness, onward in the right faith, onward in good habits and behaviour. Sing, and walk onwards.

Sing, And Keep Going

Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we still live in anxiety, so that we may sing it one day in heaven in full security. Why do we now live in anxiety? Can you expect me not to feel anxious when I read, is not man’s life on earth a time of trial? Can you expect me not to feel anxious when the words still ring in my ears, Watch and pray that you will not be put to the test?

Can you expect me not to feel anxious when there are so many temptations here below that prayer itself reminds us of them, when we say, forgive us our trespasses…? Every day we make our petitions, every day we sin…

Even here amidst trials and temptations let us, let all men, sing alleluia. God is faithful, says holy Scripture, and he will not allow you to be tried beyond your strength. So let us sing alleluia even here on earth. Man is a debtor, but God is faithful…

You have entered upon a time of trial but you will come to no harm—God’s help will bring you through it safely. You are like a piece of pottery, shaped by instruction, fired by tribulation. When you are put in the oven therefore, keep your thoughts on the time when you will be taken out again, for God is faithful and he will guard your going in and your coming out.

But in the next life, when this body of ours has become immortal and incorruptible, then all trials will be over… O the happiness of the heavenly alleluia, sung in security, in fear of no adversity! We shall have no enemies in heaven, we shall never lose a friend. God’s praises are sung both there and here, but here they are sung in anxiety, there, in security; here they are sung by those destined to die; there, by those destined to live forever; here they are sung in hope, there, in hope’s fulfillment; here they are sung by wayfarers, there, by those living in their own country.

So then, my brothers, let us sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten our labours. You should sing as wayfarers do—sing, but continue your journey. Do not be lazy, but sing to make your journey more enjoyable. Sing, but keep going.

What do I mean by keep going? Keep on making progress. This progress, however, must be in virtue; for there are some, the Apostle warns, whose only progress is in vice. If you make progress, you will be continuing your journey, but be sure that your progress is in virtue, true faith and right living. Sing then, but keep going.

St. Augustine, Office of Readings, Saturday of the 34^th week of Ordinary Time

Reflection – It is with this reading that the Church chooses to end its liturgical cycle of patristic and hagiographic readings. This year, as it happens, it is superseded by the feast of St. Andrew, but nonetheless I wanted to feature it today.

Pope Francis has called us in his most recent document, the exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, to be vigilant of our Christian joy. In the urgent need of Christian witness and preaching on all of our parts, it is vital that we present a Christianity that actually is Good News in a convincing way. And as the Pope so pithily puts it, if we continually look like we’ve just come from a funeral, we’re not going to convince anyone that Jesus actually came to bring joy and blessing into the world.

I love Augustine’s simple formulation of the call. ‘Sing, but keep going.’ We live in a world racked by tribulations of one sort of another. There is real suffering and turmoil in every human life, and hard labour of one sort of another. Nobody would deny that. We are indeed pots in the kiln from time to time, and the fire can get a wee bit hot. I do love his imagery—and I think he did mean it to be comical—of the pot patiently thinking of when it will be taken out.

Meanwhile, be a singing pot. Sing alleluia, no matter what. Life is peaceful or at least stable, and perhaps the years are rolling out before you with little variety or change in sight? Sing alleluia. You’re in a time of ‘hard labour with no chance of parole’ – the busy, jam packed years of ceaseless toil and striving and fatigue? Sing alleluia. Things have taken a terrible turn for the worse, and great suffering and sorrow has come upon you? Sing alleluia. Or things are just grand and you love your life? Sing alleluia… and keep going. Don’t get complacent.

So that’s the word for the end of the year, according to Holy Mother Church. Sing alleluia, and so doing keep your joy intact. Keep going, and so doing push on to greater love and holiness and generosity of spirit. A good word to end the year on, alleluia, alleluia.

Preach the Gospel With Your Strife

This is our glory: the witness of our conscience. There are men who rashly judge, who slander, who whisper and murmur, who are eager to suspect what they do not see, and eager to spread abroad things they have not even a suspicion of. Against men of this sort, what defense is there save the witness of our own conscience?

My brothers, we do not seek, nor should we seek, our own glory even among those whose approval we desire. What we should seek is their salvation, so that if we walk as we should they will not go astray in following us. They should imitate us if we are imitators of Christ; and if we are not, they should still imitate him… And so we seek no advantage for ourselves when we aim to please men. We want to take our joy in men—and we rejoice when they take pleasure in what is good, not because this exalts us, but because it benefits them…

And so my brothers, our concern should be not only to live as we ought, but also to do so in the sight of men; not only to have a good conscience but also, so far as we can in our weakness, to do nothing which might lead our weak brother into thinking evil of us. Otherwise, as we feed on the good pasture and drink the pure water, we may trample on God’s meadow, and weaker sheep will have to feed on trampled grass and drink from troubled waters.

St. Augustine, Office of Readings, Tuesday, 13^th Week of Ordinary Time

Reflection – I have been pondering a great deal this past week the challenges of proclaiming the Gospel in a hostile and contentious environment. I guess having this little social media apostolate is bound to raise the question. The first paragraph of this sermon from St. Augustine is a fairly good description of an awful lot of what flies around on the Internet these days, don’t you think? Rash judgment, slander (not in the strict legal definition, mind you), leaping to unfounded conclusions, impugning of base motivations to opponents, eagerness to spread abroad every bad report and suggestion of impropriety among them—if everything that fell under that description was removed from the Internet, the whole thing could probably fit on my laptop!

So, for example, in the current recharged debate about same-sex marriage, accusations and counter-accusations fly freely. ‘You’re all hate-filled bigots! You want gay people to die!’ ‘You’re all anti-Christian zealots! It’s all a plot to destroy the Catholic Church’ ‘You’re haters!’ ‘You’re persecutors! ‘Boo!’ ‘Hiss!’

And so it goes. I won’t dignify the above with the word ‘debate’. This is not a debate, but a mud-slinging match. There is no effort to understand, to meet the other, to hear the other, to find that necessary common ground without which conversation is impossible. I don’t mean to suggest that there has been no effort whatsoever at rational ordered argument on this matter, just that the ‘conversation’ has overwhelmingly tended to degrade into a shouting match of slogans and postures.

And so we have this wonderful exhortation from St. Augustine, who himself lived in a pretty darned contentious environment, and who had his own opponents galore, right at his doorstep in Hippo. North Africa was a hotbed of the Donatist schism, which was deep and very emotional in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, touching as it did upon the proper way to preserve the Church’s integrity in view of public sinners and apostates, and in particular in view of the Christians who had cracked under persecution and torture in the age of the martyrs.

The Catholic position was that our integrity lay in the path of mercy and compassion for sinners; the Donatist position was one of rigid exclusion of those who didn’t make the cut. The Catholic position also was that Christ remained faithful to his Church and acted in his sacraments regardless of our merits or failures; the Donatists held that Christ would only be faithful if we were faithful.

It was emotional and divisive and very painful in that time period. I personally am so very glad to be a Catholic, and not a Donatist! But meanwhile, here we are in 2013 trying to find a way to present the Gospel call to purity and sexual integrity in an atmosphere of intense anger and (frankly) a concerted effort to get us to just shut up about the whole thing. And meanwhile we have our own sins, our own struggles, our own far from perfect charity and purity to contend with.

Augustine calls us here to a great spiritual and emotional maturity. We are to have no concern, really, but to love our brothers and sisters and to seek their salvation. We are to not care, really, if they hate us and hurl abuse and invectives at us. We are to be very humble about our own failings and strive to be really good in our lives, both because that’s how we should be, but also for their sake, to not have our own lack of love and harshness be a stumbling block for anyone else.

And so, I think I’m going to depart from my usual blog format this week. I want to just write, for a few days, about this whole painful contentious issue, to express clearly what I understand to be the Catholic position (which is my own), and to try, at least, to bring it under the mantle of love and compassion (which I believe it genuinely is). I realize, doing this, that I will probably fail, and will probably hurt some feelings - it seems that strife is unavoidable in this particular task of preaching the Gospel. But we have to try to talk to one another about this, not simply scream at one another. So these next few days will be my effort at talking, and I would like to listen, too, to anyone else’s views on the subject. God bless.

The God Who Strips Himself Naked

God could give no greater gift to men than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, their head and to join them to him as his members, so that the word might be both Son of God and son of man, one God with the Father and one man with all men.

The result is that when we speak with God in prayer we do not separate the Son from him, and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself: it is the one Savior of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us and in us and is himself the object of our prayers.

He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, he is the object of our prayers as our God. Let us recognize both our voice in his, and his voice in ours. When something is said, especially in prophecy, about the Lord Jesus Christ that seems to belong to a condition of lowliness unworthy of God, we must not hesitate to ascribe this conditon to one who did not hesitate to unite himself with us...

Our thoughts then must be awakened to keep their vigil of faith. We must realize that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of men and found to be a man like others; he humbled himself by being obedient even in accepting death... Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one man with himself, head and body.

St. Augustine, Office of Readings, Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Reflection - One thing I do want to do with this new blog is to periodically include snippets from the Office of Readings of the Church. Daily the Church offers a rich banquet of patristic and other writings in the divine office; it is a constant offering of wisdom and light that sadly goes unused by the mass of Catholic Christians.

I include this today since we are heading with this evening's opening of the Fifth Sunday of Lent into Passiontide, the final two weeks of Lent when the Church turns its gaze more and more intently to the figure of the humiliated Christ, the lowly one, the poor man who is God from God, Light from Light, the God who strips himself naked before us, the very fount of all joy and beauty who embraces pain, sorrow, disfigurement for our sake, the Deathless One who dies for us.

In the face of this Face, there are only two appropriate responses. Ultimately, we are to forsake all else to follow this man, this God wherever he leads us and to have no other concern but to live in his will and his love. But to get there, to grow to love Him that much so that we can do this, the Church has always known that we need to simply behold him. And Passiontide is all about beholding the Lamb of God, beholding the man (ecce homo!), beholding the wood of the cross.

To not turn away, to not shrug it off with a casual 'whatever', to not be blithe or heedless of it. God died for us. God became man and died for us. God united himself to us that totally - marvel of marvels. The poverty of Christ, the humility of God, the astounding path God chose to walk to save and redeem the world is our intense focus these next two weeks. There is little to say about it (not that that ever stops me from trying), little to say to God in response to it except a weak and shaky 'Thank you'.

But it seems to me that this is precisely the direction Pope Francis is guiding us towards, in his life-long focus on poverty and simplicity of life, reflected in his words and deeds of these first days of his papacy. We see a world, and a Church, beset with problems and anguish and sin. Our human tendency is to take control, to get all clever and efficient and smooth, to whip those bishops and priests and politicians into shape, goshdarnit, and then we'll have a Church or a nation worth belonging to!

Jesus stripped himself naked, was beaten up, flogged, and nailed to two pieces of wood. And that's how the world got saved, and the how the Church was born, in the first place. So... the path of renewal and restoration must follow this same path, don't you think? This same Christ is living in us, living for us, and seated at the right hand of God the Father in the heavens. Let us pray in him, with him, and to him, then, as wise St. Augustine counsels, so that we may discern the path of love and brotherhood in our own lives and our life together as the Body of Christ in the world.